#heavy wooded areas and near campgrounds

[pcttrailsidereader]

Trash on the Trail -- What's Out There

Bandages, balloons, bullet casings: Here’s how much trash is on the Pacific Crest Trail

A pair of environmental scientists who thru-hiked the trail last year conducted the largest known and most comprehensive survey of litter on the Pacific Crest Trail. Illustration by Sophie D'Amato/The Chronicle from No Trace Trails elements.

Their findings reflected my own perception of trash on the PCT. The litter I have encountered does seem to be concentrated around highway crossings, campgrounds, trailheads, and high-use areas with easy road access. The issue of toilet paper along the trail is a more complicated issue . . . one that seemingly combines awareness, behavioral change, and some infrastructure support.

ByGregory Thomas and Harsha Devulapalli

Roughly 1 million people per year venture onto the wild and scenic Pacific Crest Trail, the 2,650-mile hiking route that winds through the West Coast’s soaring mountain ranges between Mexico and Canada.

That includes hikers out for a day in the woods, backpackers on multiday trips and thru-hikers seeking to conquer the whole thing in one long trek. Inevitably, some of those nature lovers leave behind micro-trash and bits of plastic litter. No one has sought to quantify the impact of trash on the trail — until now.

A pair of environmental scientists who thru-hiked the trail last year conducted the largest known survey of litter on the PCT, providing a sharp look at the kinds of materials people leave on the trail, in what concentrations, and where. The project was carried out, mile by mile, by Tori McGruer, 29, who holds a doctorate in environmental toxicology, and Macy Gustavus, 25, who holds a master’s degree in watershed sciences.

Here’s what they found.

A look at a few of McGruer and Gustavus’ findings

Graphic by Sophie D'Amato/The Chronicle from No Trace Trails elements

© OpenMapTiles© OpenStreetMap contributors

McGruer and Gustavus started their journey in March 2023 in Campo (San Diego County), near the Mexican border, the launchpad for northbound thru-hikers. They’d secured $16,000 in funding through grants and partnerships, quit their jobs and hit the trail.

From the get-go, they found significant concentrations of litter — bottle caps, gum wrappers and rubber fragments.

Over the next six months, McGruer (right) and Gustavus hiked the full 2,650-mile trail, which crosses the High Sierra and the Cascade Range, to the Canadian border. They cataloged — and usually collected — more than 1,000 pieces of trash. They found lots of snack wrappers, used toilet paper, Band-Aids and cigarette butts as well as novelties like Mylar balloons, a spent shotgun cartridge and a rusty horseshoe.

The researchers surveyed 1-kilometer segments of trail at 10-mile intervals — a total of 260 survey areas ● (a rate of about 2-3 per day). Each hiker scoped for litter on her respective side of the trail to a distance of about 6 feet from its center.

They handled trash objects with plastic salad tongs for sanitary reasons and deposited them into waterproof stuff sacks, “so if there was something gross we could put it in there and not worry about it leaching out,” McGruer said.

Certain heavy or cumbersome items, like pieces of an abandoned car, were cataloged but left on the trail. They categorized each item using Rubbish, a mobile app that helps users organize and geolocate litter in open spaces.

So, the dirtiest stretch of the entire trail?

A long segment bookending the San Gabriel Mountains on the outskirts of Los Angeles was the dirtiest of the entire PCT, presumably due to its proximity to a major metropolis. One-third of all the trash the researchers logged during their trip came from this region.

A few survey areas there contained hundreds of litter items. However, the researchers set a 100-item maximum when counting litter in a given survey area. When they hit that threshold, they believed they could extrapolate the trash concentration with reasonable accuracy, they said.

Mylar Balloons

Those shiny, metallic, helium-filled balloons are remarkably durable and capable of floating long distances. Strangely, they are winding up in remote wilderness areas at a rate that is concerning to biologists, as the Chronicle has recently reported.

McGruer retrieved several of them in the Southern California desert — one stuck in a patch of bushes, another submerged in a river. Survey aside, she made it a personal mission to remove the ones she found.

“One day I had like three partially inflated ones attached to my pack and someone passing us on the trail said ‘happy birthday’ to me,” she said.

The researchers found trash in about 60% of the 260 survey zones, meaning 40% contained no discernible litter. The hot spots along the trail tended to correlate with areas of easy access and high human traffic like highway crossings, campgrounds and day-use areas.

Brian Feulner/Special to the Chronicle

Many of the zero-trash areas were in remote mountain regions like Northern California’s High Sierra and Washington’s Cascade Range, where few people set foot.

That finding tracks with the experience of Jack Haskel, trail information manager for the Pacific Crest Trail Association, which maintains the trail on behalf of the U.S. Forest Service.

“Much of the trail is pretty pristine regarding trash but you do find hot spots where there’s a lot of it,” he said.

The most common trash materials found were: soft plastics, such as bits of bar wrappers or cuts of duct tape; hard plastics like water bottles and broken trekking pole baskets; brass bullet casings; paper shreds and used toilet paper; cigarette butts; and miscellaneous fragments.

In many instances, researchers encountered single pieces of stray trash, one at a time. But sometimes they’d find dozens of pieces of litter linked to a single event. For instance, in the backcountry of Shasta County they found 50 or more strands of tree-flagging tape used by foresters scattered on the ground.

What’s that?

In some cases, differentiating rubbish from natural ground materials was challenging. Identifying and classifying objects required four of the five senses — sight, smell, touch and, at one point, taste.

Unsure about the makeup of a smooth chunk of translucent detritus they found in the dirt –— was it plastic? glass? a natural mineral? — Gustavus popped it into her mouth and bit down. Glass, she decided.

“That’s not common,” Gustavus said. “I don’t encourage people to do that.”

Toilet paper

Used toilet paper left along the trail — half-buried, stuffed under a rock, clinging to bushes — is the PCT’s single, stand-out trash problem, according to Haskel of the Pacific Crest Trail Association. It is a gross, unsightly bane of trail rangers and volunteer stewards. The trash researchers found a lot of it — particularly in the northern states.

“In Oregon and Washington there was toilet paper everywhere,” McGruer said. “I was like, what is happening?”

In lieu of using a toilet, backpackers and hikers should bury their waste several inches deep in the ground, or use a wag bag and carry it out, and take their soiled toilet paper with them. Poop carries toxins and bacteria that, even when buried, can leach into nearby water sources and infect wildlife, Haskel said.

Biodegradables

Sunflower seeds, pistachio and peanut shells, orange peels — the researchers found them scattered along the entire trail route, and seeing them drove Gustavus “absolutely insane.” Yes, they should technically break down over time, she said, but hikers shouldn’t feel free to dump them in the natural environment.

“It’s kind of a misguided principle,” Gustavus said. “That stuff does not belong out there.”

Pictured: Pistachio shells on the trail in the mountains of Washington State.

The pair completed their thru-hike in September 2023. McGruer (left) and Gustavus are shown here at the PCT's northern terminus in the remote mountains where Washington State meets Canada.

It’s important to note that many PCT users actively beautify the trail each year.

Local volunteer groups, rangers and backpackers are all known to pick up trash they encounter on their outings as a simple act of altruism. Also, eight years ago a pair of young men made it their mission to remove the junk they encountered during their thru-hike; they ended up with more than 700 pounds of stuff, including a mattress.

Extrapolating from their data, McGruer and Gustavus estimate there to be about 200,000 pieces of trash along the trail at any given moment. But that’s not to say the trail feels trashy, McGruer said.

“We frequently saw trash, but often there would be a small piece in one of our 1-kilometer surveys. You wouldn't register that as a ton of trash,” she said. “I think what our survey findings say is that people leave a trash footprint wherever we go with these materials that really don't break down in the environment.”

The survey project, which the researchers dubbed No Trace Trails, was supported by grant funding and financial backing through the Moore Institute for Plastic Pollution Research in Long Beach via the Richard Lounsbery Foundation in Washington, D.C., and the American Alpine Club.

McGruer and Gustavus are putting together a research manuscript for peer review. They’re also seeking funds to help analyze the microplastic content of a series of soil samples they collected during their hike.

Sarah “Mountain Goat” Steinbauer from Austria hikes the Pacific Crest Trail near Quincy (Plumas County) on June 19, 2023. The heavy snowfall in the Sierra Nevada that year created special challenges for thru-hikers along the PCT. Brian Feulner / Special To The Chronicle

Credits

Reporting by Gregory Thomas. Reporting and graphics development by Harsha Devulapalli. Editing by Yoohyun Jung and Kate Galbraith. Design, development and illustration by Sophie D'Amato. Design editing by Alex K. Fong. Visuals editing by Ramin Rahimian. Powered by the Hearst Newspapers DevHub.

[goodfish-bowl]

Ectober Day 5: Fairy Circle

Prequel to Lost in the Wood

AO3 link (will be updated)

Summary: Flynn should’ve known better than to go into the woods by himself.

Words: 1596

Content warnings: child abduction, manipulation

Notes: this is the first, and Lost in the Wood is technically the last, but there will be more in between, the order your read them in is irrelevant.

Flynn’s parents were fighting again. It was his birthday, they could at least wait until the next day. Papa was trying to teach him how to shoot a gun, which Mom had known he had brought. That’s what the argument was about this time. Flynn didn’t think he really needed to know how to shoot a shotgun. He knew how to get away from a bear and make a variety of traps, why would he need a gun?

The yelling escalated and Flynn decided an enclosed tent was not the place to be. He took a deep breath, bitter that his parents would fight on his birthday. He loved the woods, it had a quiet that didn’t exist in their cabin back in Spitoon. He loved his home and his parents, he just wished they’d get along more.

Flynn had an idea, then, and took a glance behind him. He wasn’t allowed to go into the woods alone. It was the chief rule, one of the few things his parents did agree on absolutely. Flynn grabbed his bag, shoved it full of the most basic gear, and took off running.

The woods consumed him in seconds. Another thing he loved. He instantly found the place in the woods where the trees were as thick around as the tool shed, and the light became dim, high canopy preventing it from touching the ground more than just enough to see through green lenses.

Flynn slowed down and took a glance behind him, the deer tail barely visible among the remaining brush. He couldn’t hear his parents anymore, and the forest was much too silent. He felt desperately alone. Flynn took a deep breath and calmed down, trying to keep from crying. He would never get his parents to work together to find him if he couldn’t at least wait for them to notice he was gone. (They’d notice right? They would come for him?) He made himself a comfortable spot and pulled out a protein bar to munch on. Now all he had to do is wait.

Flynn waited, and then waited some more. He was really patient, he knew he was, and he knew he had waited a long time by now. The sun was getting ready to set soon. Something sad and lonely settled in a corner of his mind. Where were Mom and Papa? We’re they looking for him? He knew that he hadn’t wondered to far by himself, he should be able to hear them from camp if they were calling for him.

Flynn held as still and quiet as he physically could, but he heard nothing, not even the sounds of the woods he had grown to love. Suddenly uncomfortable at the lack of sound outside of his own person, Flynn decided to go back to camp. He didn't want to be out here at night. He pulled a flashlight from his bag and clicked the button. The light flickered pathetically for a second before going out, leaving him in the coming darkness.

As fast as he safely could, Flynn went back towards camp. The woods didn’t go back to the familiar sight of the campground, but remained old and silent, judging him for his actions. Tears built up behind his eyes, but Papa said boys didn’t cry, so he shouldn’t. But Flynn couldn’t help it, and the tears flowed freely.

“Mom! Papa!” He called out, fear and desperation saturating his voice. He cried out again and again, but the woods gave him nothing in return.

Finally, the brink of darkness fell, and Flynn lost the ability to see.

“Poor thing. Did your parents leave you?”

Flynn froze and whiled around, yelping in fear as his heart sputtered in his chest. He hadn’t even heard someone approach.

And she was standing far too close, only a couple feet away, a strange green lantern illuminating her and the area around her. Flynn whimpered, scared, silently chiding himself for acting like a baby. He wasn’t scared! She just surprised him. Yeah, that’s all. The dark, silent woods, with surprise ladies had nothing on him. He built up his courage to reply.

“My parents didn’t leave me!” He shouted defensively, “I ran away.”

He couldn’t see her features under the black veil she was wearing, which he thought was weird. It was nowhere near Halloween. Even stranger, she started to sniffle and cry, like she was the one lost.

“Oh, oh, so sad. You must be so brave to run away from your parents! Tell me, little one, why did you run?” She asked, her voice quivering from her tears.

Flynn gulped, this lady gave him the creeps. “I wanted them to make them stop fighting on my birthday,” he answered truthfully.

She stood there for a moment, before wailing in anguish. It echoed in the forest much more than it should, “So brave, so selfless, so, so, so sad,” She cried out, “How old did you turn today?” She asked between another sniffle.

“Twelve.”

She was too close all too fast. He didn’t see her move, but now her face was leaned into his, and he could see her stange, bloodshot and crimson eyes underneath her pitch veil.

“Would you like to play a game with me? When we’re done I can take you back to your parents.” She asked, her voice and tone suddenly different.

When he tried to back up, her hand snapped to his wrist, ice cold and pale fingers digging into his wrist. He began to struggle, pulling desperately on her wrist and hand to release him.

“Stop! You’re hurting me.” Flynn wailed, throwing all his wait into him release. She didn’t as much as budge.

After a heavy second, her fingers cracked off of his wrist like old hinges. He cradled his wrist, aware that he would have bruises by tomorrow.

“Will you play?” She asked, her tone so monotone she could’be been a robot.

“No! I want to go back to my parents!” He demanded. She didn’t react.

“I will take you back to your parents after we play, I promise,” she swore, placing a hand onto her chest.

“No! You’re creepy and you hurt me! I don’t want to lpay with you!”

Apparently, she didn’t like that answer. She reeled back, and clutched and tugged at her veil. He could still see her eyes under her veil, and the green light of the lantern seemed to intensify.

“Then you won’t leave this forest.”

The light of the lantern snuffed out, abandoning him in the dark. He cried out, frightened or the pitch blackness and silence that had engulfed him.

“Please! Don’t leave me! I’ll play! I’ll play! Just don’t leave me here!” Flynn wailed.

The lantern light returned, this time several paces behind him. He could see her smile under the veil.

“Thank you so much. I’ve been so lonely,” she thanked him, and beckoned him closer.

Hesitantly, he took a few steps forward, but easily out of reach still.

“So, what are we playing?” Flynn asked, genuinely curious.

“I love to play castle. I’ll be the Lady, and you can be my lovely little knight!” He exclaimed in glee, before pausing, “I don’t know your name yet, little knight. Tell me so I may knight you as your Lady and Queen.”

Realizing the game had already begun, Flynn went down on one knee, “My name is Flynn Walker, my lady. What is yours?‘

She smiled, kind and cruel. “My name is Misery Vex, but you may call me Lady Widow.”

She suddenly held a blade, as long as his forearm, the metal reflecting the green of her lantern. His eyes widened. She hadn’t had that a second ago. She pointed it at him, then carefully touched his shoulders twice with it.

“Flynn Walker, do you swear to serve me and my will as long as you can, with your heart and life? Until your body no longer bleeds and mind no longer thinks? DO you promise to protect me from all threats and dote upon my every word?” She asked.

Still thinking it part of a game, Flynn swore. “I do, my Lady Widow.”

“Then rise, Ser Flynn.”

Flynn rose to his feet and she handed him the blade. It was stange to hold, and it hummed in his grip, slowly getting lighter and smaller until it suited him perfectly. He watched in awe.

“Come now, Ser Flynn, my little knight, lets go to my castle,” she commanded, and he knew it was a command, he could feel it.

He followed, transfixed by the sway of the lantern and the shadows it cast. The trees parted and the moon shone through a single hole in the canopy, revealing a ring in the middle of the bare clearing. It was made of strange mushrooms Flynn had never seen, growing in a perfect circle.

She stepped inside, and beckoned him to d the same. He obeyed, despite a voice in the back of his head that sounded like his mother, warning him to stay, that something was amiss. It was overwhelmed by the urge to do as Lady Widow said. Flynn stepped inside of the ring, right next to his Lady. She beamed at him in approval and unconditional love. She beat down, so much taller than any person he had ever met, and embraced him.

The lantern crackled, and the mushrooms stole its light. The ground fell away into green beneath him and Lady Widow, and they vanished.

[smilebouquet]

somewhere to go, someone to love

my secret santa gift (@ducktalessecretsanta2020) for @kvanderquack!! i’m sorry for tagging again after i already sent my gift via dm-

also on ao3!!

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For as long as Lena lived (all fifteen years), she’d always been alone. She was born alone on the heights of Mount Vesuvius, from the remnants of her Aunt Magica’s shadow. She travelled to Duckburg alone, with no one to keep her company other than the voices in her head and the harsh whispering of her shadow. She bore the brunt of Magica’s lashings and whining alone, hurt and angry and bitter.

A happy family felt like such a foreign concept to her. Magica was always her one and only kin, the only person who had a connection to her. And she hated every second of it. If having just one aunt was so exhausting, imagine having two aunts. Imagine three. Criticizing your every move. Yelling at you for screwing up. Demanding nothing but obedience and respect and returning none of it. 

Lena didn’t think she would be able to take it. Family just didn’t sound like something she’d like.

That’s what she thought, anyway, until the Sabrewings took her in.

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1.

Lena can’t sleep.

Or to be exact, she can’t sleep peacefully. Ever since she came back to the land of the living, she’s been having dreams. Dreams where she found herself running from her. Into the woods, where the screeching of bats rang in the air, and the ground was muddy and made each consecutive step heavy. Or within a mansion suspiciously similar to Scrooge’s, her voice bouncing off the walls and getting closer and closer until they were literally screaming into her ears. She could do nothing but run.

She never dared to look back, but Lena always managed to glimpse her in the corner of her eye. The swish of a velvety black cape. A gloved hand, reaching out to snatch her. A flash of purple magic. 

Lena always manages to wake up before Magica could grab her and do god-knows-what. She would always be grateful for the fact that she awoke easily. But every dream ended in To Be Continued — never The End — and Lena didn’t want to know what The End would look like, because she has the sinking feeling that it won’t be a Happily Ever After.

Tonight is no different. She’s staring up at the ceiling of Violet’s room, letting the muffled snores of her roommate fill the still air. It’s getting increasingly hard to stay awake, and she isn’t sure how much longer she can take it.

Sighing, she rolls out of bed and leaves the room, making sure the door creaked as quietly as possible and that it clicked shut. She heads down the stairs and into the living room. A bookshelf stands in the corner, filled with all sorts of books from encyclopedias to photography books.

Lena instinctively grabs a cookbook (and accidentally knocks off a few more, but she’ll deal with them later) from the second topmost shelf. Yellow sticky notes jut out of the pages, all written on with dark purple ink. Walking into the kitchen adjacent, she flicks on the light, then flips the book open. Vanilla Cake, reads the title in big bold letters, followed by the exact quantity of ingredients needed and the instructions on how to bake one.

This should keep her up until tomorrow.

"...Lena? Shouldn't you be in bed?"

She freezes. Ty is standing at the door, a wooden baseball bat loosely held in his grip. He chucks it aside and steps into the kitchen.

"Hey." She waves half-heartedly with a sheepish smile. "I, uh, couldn't sleep."

"And you're in the kitchen with a cookbook, why?"

Because Aunt Magica haunts my dreams every night and I don’t wanna deal with it anymore?

“...I wanted to do something nice for my friends for once, so I thought baking a cake for our sleepover would be neat?”

Ty’s gaze flickers between Lena and the clock currently showing 12:59. He pinches the area between his eyes. “Lena, it’s late. I think you should go to bed—”

“No!” He flinches. Lena’s eyes widen. “I mean— no, I can’t go to bed until I finish this cake!” she backtracks, her voice cracking. Her heart is pounding. She can't go to sleep, she can't...! “If you help me, I’ll go to bed sooner! Maybe!”

Ty scratches the back of his head. “Well, Indy’s the dad who bakes, not me... but I suppose I can try.”

Relief washes over her. She flashes him a tired smile, handing him a bowl and some measuring cups. “Thanks.”

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2.

“We’re back!” 

Indy looks up from the couch. “Welcome back. How was your sleepover?”

“Pleasant,” Violet replies, already halfway up the stairs. “Ate some cake. Played a video game. Saved Lena from getting dragged into a mirror and possibly losing her within a lucid dream to the witch responsible for the shadow war several months ago. The usual.”

“Sounds nice,” Indy remarks. Then did a double take. “Wait, what?”

Ty laughs, following after Violet. “It’s a long story. Took the whole car ride for them to finish telling it.” Indy glares after him, but shrugs and returns to his book.

Lena drops her own bag on the floor and flops onto the couch with a heavy sigh. She could shower or whatever later. Right now she just wanted to rest.

“Long day?” Indy asks, barely moving from his position on the right side of the couch.

“Kinda. I’ve been through worse, though.”

There's a beat of silence.

The unspoken Like what? hangs over her head uncomfortably. Is this the part where she spills her entire life story? Should she play it off as a joke? Would it be wise to pretend she hadn’t said anything? She can feel Indy’s stare on her shoulder, burning like a pair of red-hot lasers—

He either noticed her discomfort, or is really good at reading minds, because he hums quietly and says, “You don’t have to elaborate.”

“...Ah. Right. Okay.” She sits upright, then lets out a short laugh. Her eyes wander over to Indy, who’s still reading his book with a content look on his face. “What is that?”

Indy shows her the book. There’s a bunch of pictures of Violet, Ty and Indy together. “It’s one of the family photo albums,” he explains. “Photography is one of my hobbies.”

Lena grunts in response, then peers at the photos more closely. “Is that Violet in the library?”

“Oh, that’s from the first time we visited the public library together. We had just moved into Duckburg, and wanted to do a little sightseeing. Violet insisted that we check out the library. That girl always did love reading. She gets it from Ty…”

They spend the rest of the hour looking through the photo album together. There’s a surprising amount of photos in this one tiny album, each preserving a special memory that Indy knows by heart and tells Lena about with nothing but fondness. She now knows that Violet used to take ballet classes (and hated it), has won at least two national spelling bees by the age of six, and is part of the Junior Woodchucks.

Photos from before Violet was born are also in it, located near the end of the album. Indy tells Lena that he first met Ty at a college entrance exam. They had entered the building at the same time, and Ty thought it would be neat to strike a conversation with him. They hit it off pretty much immediately, but forgot to ask for each other’s phone numbers before they went their separate ways.

“But you’re married now?!” Lena blurts out, jumping from the cough to point a shaky finger at him. “How?!”

He chuckles. “We met again at a supermarket several months later, I believe, reaching for the same can of beans. Ty’s first words to me ever since were ‘Holy shit, you like beans, too?!’ This time we remembered to exchange contact information, and here we are ten years later.”

“I— Wow.” Lena sits back down. “Some luck you have.”

“I wouldn’t call it luck,” he admits. His fingers gently caressing the old photo of them. “I like to think of it as fate. If we’re meant to be together, life will find a way to get us together.”

(Lena thinks about Webby.

She thinks about their “chance” meeting at the amphitheater.

She thinks about how she almost lost Webby by sacrificing herself to protect her.

She thinks about how lucky she had been that Violet was there in the library that day, reading a nerdy old book.

She inwardly decides that Indy is probably right.)

Once they reach the end of the album, Indy moves to close it. The corners of several photographs stick out from the side. Lena blinks.

“And those are?”

He looks down. “Oh.” Tucking them back in, he replies, “Those are some of the newer photographs. Haven’t gotten a new album for them yet, so I keep them here for the time being.” His fingers drum on the hard cover. “Come to think of it, I don't have any pictures with you yet. We’ll need to remedy that.”

“Hm, why?”

“You’re family, after all. I think you deserve a spot in the photo album.”

Family. She’s family. The thought of it makes her heart flutter.

It takes her a minute to realize Indy stopped talking, and is looking at her with the slightest hint of hesitation in his expression.

She beams at him. “That would be nice. You should get a new album first, though.” As if on cue, a photograph falls out. She picks up. “Hey, what about this one?” Indy lights up, and starts going into a tangent about the one time they lost Violet at Duckburg’s largest department store. As he does, she zones out for a bit, testing the name.

‘Lena Sabrewing’, huh…  She can feel her smile widening.  Sounds way cooler than Lena de Spell.

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3.

This is terrible, Lena concludes.

They’re on the way to the Junior Woodchuck Campgrounds for Violet’s upcoming graduation. She’s a little hazy on the details, but she does know that each year only one senior junior woodchuck can become a senior woodchuck (“That’s dumb! Why can’t you all just become senior woodchucks?!” “Don’t question it, Lena.”), they decide who graduates with some sort of obstacle course, and Violet’s opponent this year is likely going to be Huey.

Lena also knows that the campgrounds are located waaaay out on some island in the middle of nowhere, and if she sees another “NOW LEAVING DUCKBURG” sign she’s going to lose it. She lets out a groan as she slides farther down her seat, watching the pine trees blur into a strip of green on the landscape. “Hey, Vi, how much longer ‘til we’re there?”

No answer.

“Vi?”

Again, no answer. Lena knows that Violet has a tendency to be quiet during car rides, preferring to admire the scenery as they drive, but Violet should’ve at least spared her a grunt at this point.

She decides to turn and look at her. Violet is staring at her lap, perfectly still. Her fists are clenched so tightly she can see the white knuckles beneath her purple feathers, and they’re trembling.

“Vi, what’s wrong...?” Lena begins to ask, and then immediately Indy’s voice from before echoes in her head.

“Third time’s the charm, right Vi?”

The gears click into place. Oh.

She inches closer to Violet’s side — as much as she can with her seatbelt on, anyway — and reaches out to place a comforting hand over Violet’s. The hummingbird looks up.

“Hey,” Lena says, “you’ll be okay. You’re the best nerd I’ve ever know. What’s Huey got, his stupid guidebook? You’ve got this.”

“Actually, the Junior Woodchuck Wilderness Challenge prohibits use of the guidebook,” Violet corrects, then sighs. “Sorry. I know you’re trying to comfort me, but I…” She trails off. “I know failing is natural, but it still terrifies me every single time.”

Silence.

Indy, from the passenger seat, pipes up, “Violet, you know that just being willing to go back and try again is… really brave, right? Yeah, failure is inevitable, and very terrifying, but not a lot of people are able to bounce back from it like you do.”

“What Indy said.” Ty peers at them from the rearview mirror and gives them a thumbs up. “We love you no matter what, and I bet you’re gonna crush the competition this year.”

“Yeah! What they said! You’re Violet Sabrewing. You brought me back from the Shadow Realm. If you can do that, you can do anything!”

Violet stares at her for a moment, then Indy, then Ty. Her eyes are glassy. She opens her fist to hold Lena’s hand and squeezes it weakly.

“Thanks,” she whispers, with a smile that doesn’t exactly reach her eyes.

...At least she’s smiling a little. Lena frowns, but gets an idea. She leans forward to ask Ty, “By the way, how long until we get there?”

“Five hours, I think,” Indy answers.

“FIVE HOURS?!” She can feel a vein pop in her head. Five hours. Five. Hours. It feels like she’s been in this stinkin’ car for decades already. Well, no matter.

She turns to Violet. “Alright, since we’re basically stuck here, why don’t I teach you how to smacktalk?”

Violet raises an eyebrow, clearly unamused. “Is that really necessary? Also, I doubt Hubert would appreciate—”

“Of course it is! And of course he won’t. You can’t have a healthy rivalry without a little back and forth! Where’s the fun in that?! Now, the key to good smacktalk is...”

She spends the rest of the ride lecturing Violet on the essentials of smacktalk (read: making most of it up as she went). As they drove, Violet’s shoulders began to relax and she allowed herself to laugh more, and Lena felt more at ease than she had in a while.

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4.

Lena wakes up with a gasp. Frantically, she feels around. Her arms are intact. Her legs are still here. Nothing hurts. Phantom Blot isn’t here. Okay. It was just a dream. Just a dream. Just a dream.

“Lena?”

“Vi?” Lena calls, but it sounds more like a choked sob. She’s suddenly acutely aware of the tears messing up her feathers and her pounding heart.

Violet sits up. “Another nightmare?” she asks, her voice quiet. Lena nods. She gets up from bed and leaves the room. Lena sits in the darkness, her hands gripping her knees tightly. Breathe in, breathe out.

Violet returns with a tall glass of water and hands it to her. Lena takes it and brings the glass to her beak. The water is cool and soothing.

“They’ve become increasingly frequent. Shouldn’t we talk to our fathers about this?”

“No,” Lena says immediately, finishing her glass and setting it on the night table with shaky hands. “I don’t want them to get worried.” 

Violet gives her a glare that pierces even in the dark, then sighs.

“Very well.”

✿ — ✿ — ✿

On Christmas Day, Lena wakes up to Violet dumping a bucket of cold water over her.

“Merry Christmas.”

“Ack—! Violet, what the hell?!”

“Apologies,” Violet says, her tone betraying her words. She’s already dressed in a plain cream turtleneck. “You wouldn’t wake up no matter what I did.” She tugs at her sleeve. “Now, come. Fathers are already in the living room. You were literally the last to awaken.” Without waiting for a response, she drags her out of the room and down the stairs.

The living room feels… warmer than usual. There are string lights, giving out a gentle multicoloured glow, both around the Christmas Tree and hung up along the walls. Someone took the time to hang a wreath on every door in the house, each covered in mini ornaments and topped with a red bow. The bright orange fire in the fireplace is crackling.

Ty and Indy are already waiting, wearing matching Christmas sweaters. “Merry Christmas!” they greet, pulling the two girls into a hug. 

“Merry Christmas,” Lena says back before pulling away. The cheeriness of the season was beginning to catch up to her. “So! What do we do first?”

“Well, the presents are under the tree but maybe eat breakfast first—”

Lena was gone the moment Ty said ‘presents’. She rushes to the tree and begins checking the tags for her name. Not that there are that many presents to check. Violet follows soon after with a much calmer demeanor.

She ends up with a limited edition of The FeatherWeights’ newest album from Ty and Indy (“How did you know they’re my favourite band?!” “Your shirt is all we needed to clue us in.”) and an exact replica of the Caw-nverse shoes she loves wearing. Violet receives two books — an encyclopedia the thickness of one and a half dictionaries about magic and a thinner book called Tales of the Peculiar.

She’s ready to head off to the dining table to eat when Violet stops her. 

“Wait.” She pulls out a neatly wrapped present from her pocket and holds it out to Lena. “Here.”

“Wh— But I didn’t get you anything!”

“It’s okay.” Violet shoves the present into her hands. “Just take it.” Lena peers at her suspiciously before tearing the wrapping paper clean off and opening the box.

A dreamcatcher. The hoop used is a nice beige, and a flower-like design had been woven within it with colourful threads. White feathers suspended from twine, with beads adorning the strands at intervals, are attached to the hoop. Lena dangles the dreamcatcher above the box and looks at Violet questioningly.

“It may not be as beneficial as actual therapy since I couldn’t infuse it with any magic, but it should help keep the bad dreams at bay,” Violet explains. “Probably. I made it myself so it might not work.”

Lena stares at the dreamcatcher again. Upon closer inspection, the feathers and beads appear to be glued to the twine, and the twine was wound imperfectly around the base of the hoop. The flower design is also uneven, having slightly larger ‘petals’ on one side. She feels herself tear up. “Violet. This is the sweetest thing you’ve ever done for me.”

“I can’t believe saving you from roaming in the shadow realm for all of eternity isn’t the sweetest thing I've ever done for you,” Violet replies, completely deadpan. But the corners of her beak are twitching upwards.

“You wanted to summon evil spirits! I was a byproduct. It doesn’t count,” Lena jokes, putting the dreamcatcher away. She envelopes her in a crushing hug. “Thank you.” Her voice is wobbling. “This is just— It must’ve taken ages. Now I feel even worse for not getting you anything.”

Violet hugs her back just as tightly. “You’re welcome. Just make sure you get me my own personal library next year.”

As if your room isn’t filled with enough books as is, Lena thinks, but she can’t help but laugh.

Ty clears his throat. “This is great, but it’s already nine and you girls haven’t even had breakfast yet, so chop chop! We’ve got a whole day ahead of us.”

(They end up at the ice rink, where Lena learns that she’s actually terrible at ice skating. Violet offers to teach her like the Samaritan she is, but doesn’t hesitate to throw jabs at her incompetence. Fortunately, she’s not the only one who’s suffering, if Indy’s screaming and Ty’s guffawing are any indications.)

––––––––––

In the first fifteen years of her life, Lena had been alone with no one to turn to. Being part of a happy family felt like something out of a movie or fairy tale. Happiness seemed like an unreachable dream.

But within two years, she found a best friend in Webby, a sister in Violet, and two dads in Ty and Indy. She found a family to call her own, one that loved her and made her feel good about herself. She was finally content.

The dreamcatcher and family photo hanging above her bed would need to be pried from her cold, dead hands.

[cwriteshistorysortof]

Bones - A Creepypasta

A/N: Wrote this for Mrcreeps on reddit, figured I'd post it here cuz why not.

​

When I was young I’d loved nature, camping, fishing, playing in creeks and climbing trees. Growing up in central California there was lots of great camping sites that were never too far of a drive for my family, so we went on woodland excursions often. Especially in the summer when the weather was nice.

Love of the outdoors runs in my family, and that meant we were aptly prepared for all of our trips in terms of supplies and knowledge of surrounding areas. In short, we never had a bad camping trip that was caused by our own ill-preparedness. Though we’d had a few ruined by unexpected weather, freak rainstorms in the middle of summer that kept us holed up in a tent or RV for days.

I thoroughly enjoyed trips to one place in particular, a private campground, that’s been in my family for generations, and is on the border of a Native American reservation, and used to contain cattle. It is very large and very wild, still containing patches of rusted barbed wire fence and littered with old cow bones depending on where you go. Most of the cow things of course are in the old pasture, which is also scattered with old cabin parts: gas stoves that don’t work, beds and tables rotted or half eaten by termites.

Though those fences, and a few old cabins, most no longer usable, are the most permanently human thing about the place. There are no trails, besides the rode to reach the camp. If you want to hike, you have to drive quite a bit to get to trails, otherwise you can explore the vast campground without a path. There are sprawling meadows, wet and marshy, squelching beneath your every footstep, sucking you deep into the mud. Then the creek, surrounding by willows and all sorts of little greens, crawling with insects and chock full of lively fish, snatching the bugs from the air, disappearing beneath the murky surface once more. The creek bed is deep, and isn’t full in the summer so there’s a wall of stacked granite rocks before the tree lined banks, terrible to climb.

Finally there is the true woods, densely packed, towering sequoias. My mother always told me with a childlike awe, how some of them could be thousands of years old. I was already short, still am for my age, but these trees made me feel small and insignificant, like I had been dwarfed by them in a way that nothing else ever could. Though there had been fires in this area, the large trees had recovered, sporting a shell like look near there roots where they had been damaged and regrown. It was ominous to me, yet simultaneously beautiful.

It’s also got beautiful wildflowers, so many, everywhere, i thought it was weird that they were in the pasture too, but my mom says the cow pies fertilized them. I found the idea a little gross, but I loved the flowers. There were little purple ones that looked like shooting stars, mini white ones that grew in clumps like some strange broccoli, ones with long, thin red petals that looked like feathers. And of course there were little red and yellowish orange lily’s that had black spots on them, the rarest and most beautiful that I’d spend hours hunting for, only to come up with three wilted flowers and scraped knees and elbows from trying to climb the slippery rocks of the creek bank.

This place is really, truly, special. I can’t emphasize enough the wildness of it. Maybe it’s got some kind of special eldritch enchantment that kept drawing me deeper, always revealing, even though I’d been coming there every year for almost my entire life. There was something new around every corner. Even now, especially now, as I am older, I realize how unique that place is because I’ve never been anywhere that’s come close to making me feel the same way. At once curious, enchanted, comforted, even scared.

There was only one occasion where that fear was truly justified, and the strangeness I felt of that place proven to be true.

Based on what I’ve told you, you can guess I liked to explore, to go further than I’d gone before and find something new and novel, even if it felt a tad odd. This... I don’t know what to call it. Encounter? Happened when I was ten, and it all started with those flowers.

You see the best part about exploring was that strange chilling, enchanted feeling I got, but that only ever seemed to happen when I was alone, and we always went camping as a family: me, my mom, my dad, and three older sisters. This meant in most previous trips i had a gaggle of siblings, or at least on to accompany me on adventures. Don’t get me wrong I love my siblings, and playing with them was fun, but i never got to go far on my own because of them.

But that trip, when I was ten, they were all more than thirteen, and reaching the point where they no longer wanted to play in the woods. All they wanted to do was sit in the RV and play on their phones. I still wanted to go down to the creek, or something that wasn’t being cooped up inside so I asked my mom if I could go play by myself.

Of course neither of my parents liked the idea of any of their children going into the woods alone, even if we were the only people for miles I could run into a bear or simply fall off a too-tall rock and injure myself. So I promised them I would stay close by, and said I would just be looking for flowers. I told myself it would be enough to keep me entertained.

But i wanted the red and yellowish-orange flowers with the black spots, or Tiger Lilies I think they were called, and I couldn’t seem to find any of them near me. I was on the opposite side of the creek from my campsite. I’d had to wade through the shallow part of the creek to get across, and now my jeans were wet up to my knees, the heavy denim weighing me down as I trudged alone the creek bank. Suddenly I heard chittering to my left, in the opposite direction of the campground.

I quickly whipped my head around, thinking it was a large insect and preparing to run as those were really the only thing out here that bothered me. But when I looked I saw nothing, for a moment, then I noticed one of the flowers I had been hunting for. I began hopping happily towards it

The air was warm and heavy, humid as the summer sun evaporated water in the plants and creek. Clouds of mosquitoes filled the air, and I had coated myself in bug spray to keep them from biting me. It’s strange wet-dry feeling bothering my skin as it melded with my sweat, burning the little nicks on my skin from tree branches and thistles. It’s pungent alcohol scent invaded my nostrils.

But I was elated as I plucked the flower from the ground, holding it up triumphantly, peeking the sunset sky through the trees, the same color as the flower through the trees. For a moment everything seemed cast in warm shades, red, pink, orange, brown. Everything except the needles of the evergreen trees. I closed my eyes, feeling hot sweat running onto my eyelashes, as those same warm colors appeared behind my eyelids.

When I opened my eyes I could see another Tiger Lily, some fifty feet ahead, and I dashed towards it, adding it to my collection. There was another one ahead still, just at the limit of my vision, and I went for that one too, not thinking about how far I was straying from camp as it became, three, four, five, ten flowers. I’d never found this many before. All of them roughly the same distance apart, still far but closer than i’d ever seen them.

When i finally stopped seeing the flowers the last tinges of pink were beginning to fade from the sky and I was panting but elated. I was next to a large tree with a little cave in it, hollowed out near the roots, maybe with animal help. I crawled inside to count my haul, and catch my breathe, enchanted by this little woodland hut, getting that curious chill up my spine.

From the outside it seemed just barely big enough to fit me. But when I slipped inside I tripped on something, falling further inside than should have been possible. I felt something crawling on my skin. I closed my eyes, yelping and wiping it off, shaking myself a bit. When I opened my eyes everything was dark in the little hole, except for the opening, about four feet away from the bottom. I figured I had underestimated how deep it was, pulling myself up so I could crawl out. When I noticed something.

There was a Tiger Lily, right in front of the opening. I stood, poised to pull myself up, transfixed by this flower for a moment. How could I have missed this one? It was large and vibrant, beautiful. But my eyes stung with sweat, feeling heavier with each passing second. I figured I must’ve missed this one. When I plucked it from the tender earth, I noticed something else strange.

The air outside was suddenly cool and dry, and it hit me in a sudden burst, waking me from a hot summer daze as I pulled myself out of the tree and stood up. As I took inventory of the forest around me it was...wrong. Too quiet, too dry, the trees were, they where white, not without tinges of gray and brown as though they were dirty or scraped. I looked up for their needles, they had none, only long, white slender branches. They looked like hands with too many fingers.

I felt that chill up my spine, I felt the urge to explore that came from somewhere other than my own mind. I wanted to go home, and I shivered, my clothes rustling, no longer wet with sweat or creek water. They seemed to have dried instantly. Even my mouth, my nose, my eyes felt...dry. Like I’d been living in a desert for weeks without a drop of water.

As I shuffled forward it seemed light, a watery gray dawn with no sunrise colors, not even blue. A thick, heavy fog covered everything. I could only see about ten feet ahead of me and there seemed to be dead, white trees everywhere. How they hadn’t fallen down I didn’t know, still don’t.

They reminded me of dog feces that had been left in our backyard for two long, the way it shriveled and became white, and was brittle when you scooped it up to dispose of it. I tried not to think of other similarities. I thought I saw faces in the trees, cold, unforgiving faces that would curse me and my family if i crossed them. So I kept my eyes trained to the finger like branches up high, just barely visible on shorter trees. I had to step over branches and dead bushes that made me stumble more than once.

After a little while I reached a clearing. I didn’t realize how silent it had been until I heard a noise. A strange chittering or clacking you would hear from an insect or beetle, but deeper, much deeper. It reminded me of the sound I heard that lead me to the first flower. I shivered. Yet I felt some numb calming focus overcome me as I followed the treeline, until discovering it made a tightly packed circle around this clearing that must’ve been a hundred yards across.

I heard the chittering again, something that sounded like two sticks tapped together, over and over in rapid succession, but somehow heavier. And I felt eyes on me, more than one pair of eyes. It was like everywhere was watching me.

Suddenly the thick fog dropped, not a gradually thinning. It seemed to sink into the ground and vanish altogether. And I looked around, coming to a horrible realization as I stepped on something hard and long, and it snapped beneath my weight. What I thought had been tree limbs and bare bushes on the ground, were bones.

Right behind me. It didn’t touch me, didn’t move, but I could feel it. It didn’t dare turn around. I stood there for agonizing minutes, trying to convince myself to move. It wasn’t until it trilled in my left ear, revealing a brassy-brown appendage I saw in my periphery that i was finally able to run.k inside of an organism. It looked like all of these creatures has extra bones. Like reverse ostio-perosis. They were cracked in some places, scattered with teeth marks of some kind.

Any semblance of calm fled from my body as I heard the chittering again, this time sounding closer. But I didn’t move, my stupid animal brain thinking if I could just stay still enough, whatever was out there, wouldn’t see me. Wouldn’t do god knows what to me. But I heard it a third time.

Right behind me. It didn’t touch me, didn’t move, but I could feel it. It didn’t dare turn around. I stood there for agonizing minutes, trying to convince myself to move. It wasn’t until it trilled in my left ear, revealing a brassy-brown apenfage I saw in my periphery that i was finally able to run.

I’d never ran that fast and I know I will never do it again. The cold scraped against the insides of my lungs and it hurt so bad I thought I’d breathed in broken glass, but I didn’t stop. I didn’t know where I was going, the only thing I knew was that I would rather run so hard it killed me than let that thing get ahold of me.

But it wasn’t my choice. I tripped on something, stumbling long enough I had to use a tree for balance, and I heard the chittering right behind me again. This time I couldn’t help it, as I turned around and saw the worst thing I couldn’t have imagined if I spent a thousand years trying.

It was almost like a centipede, if those were eight feet tall. It was wide too, brassy-brown segmented shell, long mandibles and too many spindly limbs that were not proportionate at all. It chittered, multiple sets of beedy black eyes staring at me. Yet it didn’t come closer. And that’s when I caught sigh of the larvae.

It’s lower half was almost a chasm, full of the little things, wriggling, squirming. One of them starting coming towards me, and I took a step back, but the bigger creature used one of it’s too-long arms to hold me in place as it climbed up my shoe and up my pant leg. When it reached my waist, it burrowed into my skin and I screamed, and thrashed for minutes as it settled itself beneath a layer of my flesh.

I still had one free hand, and I managed to snap of a bit of the larger creature’s spindly arm. I screamed again, this time to rally my courage as I stabbed it in the eye. It finally released me. I turned and ran once more, barreling through the trees. Within a minute I felt a sharp pain where the creature’s larvae had burrowed into me. If this place hadn’t been so dry I would have been crying, instead I dry sobbed, feeling the shard of bone already sticking two inches out of my abdomen, twice as thick as my thumb.

I don’t know how long I ran, but I remember finding that tree, through sheer luck. I don’t know if it was the same one but it had the same hollow bottom and I shoved myself into it, hiding at the bottom as I heard the creature chittering outside.

I dry sobbed, wrapping my arms around my knees and rocking back and forth, trying not to disturb the bloodied bit of bone protruding from my abdomen. It was six inches long by the time the chattering stopped. I don’t know what possessed me, adrenaline, the knowledge I needed to get help fast, but i looked over the edge, out of the hole.

I was never so relieved to see the familiar forest. It was dark, but it was a full moon, and I heard flies buzzing and saw mosquitoes. The warm summer air I was used to had returned, though I still felt dry. The trees were normal, reddish-brown.

As soon as I was able to stand up I sprinted towards the camp ground, the humid air a blessing on my frayed lungs.

When I got to the camp ground my parents looked frustrated and worried, but once they saw the bone sticking out of me they immediately had my sisters packing the truck and they huddled around me as my dad drove us to the nearest hospital. It looked like a stick to them, now it was dirty, looking more brown and red than white. They assumed I had impaled myself, but could tell how shaken I was.

At the hospital they said it was a stick, but I know what I saw after they removed it, why they had to put me under sedation. They’d showed me the ‘stick’ It had fused to my other bones, but they didn’t know how to explain it so they probably assumed I didn’t know. I don’t know what they made of the larvae, but I know it was real. It felt so real.

As for the air, they’d pronounced me severely dehydrated, one more hour and I could have died. It was a miracle I was able to run as far, and as fast as I did.

I’m so glad I found my way out because I can’t imagine a more painful way to die. I can’t believe all that creature’s victims went through it. I saw how malformed they were, and it must’ve taken them a long time to die that slow, painful death. I shudder now, just thinking about it.

I haven’t gone back to that campground or any since, and I don’t think I will, even if that place is special.

[elopez7228]

Scenic Route 10/47

Read on AO3 : https://archiveofourown.org/works/18268208/chapters/43229774 

Start over : https://elopez7228.tumblr.com/post/620919089893933056/scenic-route-0147

Rey woke up cold and aching. It hurt everywhere—her neck, her back, her feet. The back of the car was certainly large enough to sleep in, but it had been an unrestful sleep. Every little thing had made her jump last night. Every headlight that zoomed by was the blonde woman. Every torchlight flitting across the alleys of the campground was looking for her. Every time the dog barked, someone was surely approaching.

She was tired, sore, and already contemplating defeat. She had left London to escape depression. But instead of a sunglasses-and-cocktails vacation, she had found herself in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, 7,500 kilometers away from home. And top it off, she was being chased by a strange woman. Her luck was six feet under and her paranoia through the roof.

She wished that Leia Skywalker (and even Rose to a certain extent) had warned her about what she was getting herself into because she had no clue what to do now. Last night she had seriously imagined leaving the car in a garage somewhere and taking a flight from Jackson Hole to San Francisco. Ciao, stalkers and bizarre favors.

But what about BB8? Rey had taken responsibility of her. Taking her on a flight would require veterinary clearance, a doggie carrier, and all sorts of other complications that she had neither the energy nor the means for.

Her gut feeling told her that this setup had been deliberate on Leia’s part. With a dog in tow, her safest bet was by driving that car back. Unless she could abandon the dog in the woods somewhere...

BB8 chose that exact moment to nuzzle against her, begging for affection.

“You were in the loop about this, weren’t you?” sighed Rey as she scratched the dog between the ears. “You’re the dog equivalent of a honey trap, you conniving little traitor.”

But seriously—it was just a dog, not a KGB spy. She would be fine...

Rey got out of the car and stretched. “Come on, let’s go for a walk and then look for some breakfast.”

She dug out the box of cookies she bought last night and ate one, occasionally giving bits and pieces to BB8 after making sure they were chocolate-free. She let BB roam free this time, sensing that she wouldn’t try to escape from now on.

Tent folded and loaded into the car, Rey packed the rest of her things. BB8 chased an errant squirrel, helped herself to some treats, and took care of business. Rey watched the dog play in the tall grass as she continued checking her phone for messages. A while ago she had even left a voice message to Ben.

Rey here, British and susceptible. Sorry for my reaction the other day, my life is complicated. I saw your band was passing through Jackson Hole on the 5th of July. I’m in the neighborhood, I might come around. Bye.

That message would likely cost her dearly. How was she going to justify contacting Ben again after the scene she had caused at the Four Seasons? To be honest with herself, she hadn’t seen an alternative last night, sitting there on the cold ground. Her family and friends were thousands of kilometers away. Leia Skywalker had disappeared on her.

Whether she liked it or not, Ben Solo was the only person she had maintained contact with since landing, and the only person who had really done her any good without expecting anything in return. She hoped she wasn’t bothering him.

To be fair he had also called her ex and meddled in her personal life when he barely knew her, but due to the circumstances she tried her best to forgive him for that. She had wanted to turn the page on that particular incident and banish Ben Solo from her thoughts forever—before that mysterious blonde woman showed up.

Since then Rey had fretted about traveling alone, with no one to turn to in times of trouble. It’s not like she needed a protector. She just needed a friend, if only for the comfort of knowing that she wasn’t alone. That several hundred kilometers down the road, there would be someone on the other end of the line if she ran into a problem. But it was 7 AM and he hadn’t answered.

In his defense, Rey had texted him around midnight. Maybe he just hadn’t seen it yet.

“All aboard, BB8!”

The dog jumped into the back seat and started chewing methodically on her rubber duckie. The resulting (absurdly loud) squeaking noises made Rey smile.

Hitting the road again, Rey regretted not taking a bathroom break or a shower, or using the washing machines available at the entrance of the campsite. She reeked of dog, sweat, and old car. Strangely enough, it made her laugh. The woman Finn had known had always been a belle, sporting manicured nails and designer perfume. If only he could see her now—he would hardly recognize her.

Come to think of it, thinking about Finn no longer made her balk. Was she simply too tried to be angry? She was just starting down a particularly sharp turn when her phone vibrated. It took every ounce of her willpower not to stop in the middle of the highway to read that text. The Millenium Falcon reached Jackson Hole a few minutes later, and she parked in central town before scrambling for her phone.

Hello, Brit. I see you’ve found my number, Rey. I’m settling in at Jackson H this morning. I’m staying at the Lodge, 80 Scott Lane. I’m free should you want to get coffee sometime—let me know.

It was barely a kilometer away, she could practically walk there. But once again she thought about the blonde trying to break into her car. She would feel much safer parking in the security of a private hotel garage. It only took a few minutes to find the place, a magnificent Swiss chalet complete with exposed beams and stonework. She spotted the infamous black pickup in the parking area and stationed the Millennium Falcon right next to it.

Hello Ben, I found the Lodge. Still up for coffee?

His response was immediate:

You’ll find me in the lobby.

Leia rolled her eyes when another TSA agent approached her as she waited near the baggage claim at Sacramento International Airport. She had been expecting it, but the sheer number of public servants under the First Order’s thumb still managed to surprised her. From the minute she had left the house she had been coincidentally stopped at every traffic checkpoint possible. It was chilling to realize that this sprawling private organization was in some ways above the law.

She had thought about giving up more than once.

What could she do at this age, with only her brother and a handful of rebels behind her? They were up against a massive corporate empire that had the feds in their pocket. But Leia Skywalker had fought her entire life. For the military, for her honor, for the love of her husband, for her son’s education, for minorities’ rights, and for the weary and downtrodden underdogs. Therein lied her definition of the brave: those who defended the defenseless. She could never stop doing that. Leia knew that nothing short of her death would result in her silence.

Leia let the man search her without protest—like every other officer before him. She was wearing a long charcoal dress and heavy ornate bangles of both wrists. Her hair was pinned up in an elaborate braided chignon that added to her height. In her left hand, she carried a cane. It was less for walking and more for leaning on after spending long hours on her feet.

Like every other time, they let her go. He gave her suitcase back after failing to find anything suspicious—the lining was starting to wear. The object they were so eagerly looking for was no longer  in her possession. She smiled knowingly. Knowing that thousands of miles away, an English tourist was on her way.

Leia was greeted by a friendly face as she crossed the line into Arrivals. Her lawyer, Amilyn Holdo. Amilyn was a sixty-something daredevil, her greying hair dyed a striking violet. She was wearing a knee-length taupe skirt suit and violet pumps. Her smile was all dimples. She greeted Leai warmly and grabbed her suitcase.

“How are you, Leia? It sure took you a while—did they hold you up?”

“Like always, Amilyn. My health isn’t what it used to be and they wouldn’t let me go through the baggage claim. Every damn time. I’m forced to just ignore it these days. How’s the mission going?”

“We’ll discuss it in my office, you never know who’s listening. The meeting with Governor Valorum’s staff is in three hours, that gives us some time to plan.” Guiding Leia by the hand, she made her way to the taxi pickup zone.

The law offices of Amilyn Holdo were rather modest. Far from the ornate, high-vaulted, glass and steel monoliths that symbolized the American legal system in popular imagination. A room with a single window and wall to wall bookshelves laden with books and dossiers. Box after box of case files on every available surface, overflowing with papers, binders, envelopes, and notebooks with handwritten memos scrawled on every last page.

Amilyn moved a box stacked on a chair to make space for Leia to sit down. She poured a glass of water for her guest, and rummaged through a small cabinet. She handed Leia a hefty violet dossier held closed by a single strap. “FORCE America: First Order Resource and Capital Extraction”.

All traces of humor gone, the lawyer leaned forward and folded her fingers below her chin. “Tell me everything. Last I heard, you had found someone new?”

“Yes. Rose discovered the perfect candidate. It’s not like we could do it ourselves. We couldn’t use email or the postal service. And we would be spotted from a mile away if we did it in-person. I had to delegate.”

“But who is this girl? How do you know she’s not some FORCE spy?”

“Rose and Paige did a background check, it only took a few hours to clear her. We’re quite certain she’s just a broke tourist. It’s perfect really, FORCE was expecting an activist type, and there’s no way they can stop every single tourist from Colorado to California.”

Amilyn pursed her lips, visibly still unconvinced. “But you gave her the Falcon. Surely it will attract unwanted attention?”

Leia smiled. “They can take the Falcon apart piece by piece is they want, they won’t find a thing.”

“I wish I was confident about this,” she sighed. “This whole operation hinges on the element of surprise. If FORCE finds those documents before the public, we’re back to square one. And this time we won’t get a head start.”

She was interrupted when Leia placed a hand on hers, a comforting gesture. “Hope is like the sun, if you only believe in it when you see it, you’ll never make it through the night. Amilyn, this is the culmination of years of hard work. Have a little faith, they won’t win this time.”

“I hope you’re right, if we fail we won’t be able to recover and—“

“Trust me, Amilyn. This girl is very capable.”

The lawyer smiled begrudgingly, not quite uplifted by her client’s optimism. She chewed on the inside of her cheek in silence, avoiding Leia’s eyes.

“What’s eating you, Amy?”

“It’s—Kylo Ren.”

Leia’s smile faltered. Her face fell as she took a sip of water. “What about him?”

“You know he’s been tracking the Tico sisters. Ironically, that means they can keep tabs on him too...but it seems he left town a few days ago. Almost exactly the same time as the girls, Connix, Milham and the others.”

“FORCE already knew we were on the move. We planned for that. The more we scatter our agents, the more resources they spend chasing diversions instead of cracking our strategy,” Leia responded, trying to keep her voice neutral.

“Yes, I know. But Kylo has Snoke’s ear, and Hux’s attention. He knows the inner workings of our organization, he knows you and your brother. And he’s deeply involved with the Order. Are you sure he won’t see this coming?”

Leia’s shoulders sagged, as if burdened by the weight of her grief. She took a deep breath, pausing to find the right words. “Kylo is a brilliant boy. He was swayed by material wealth and prestige. He’ll understand one day. I don’t think he would dare to come after me himself.”

“And you?” Amilyn asked, “If we win, they’ll lose everything. Are you willing to put your own son in prison?”

[i-love-charles]

*Waddles over and whispers* Can I request; Charles is holding in his jealousy for reader when Javier is flirting and having a laugh around reader but after a party night, Javier kisses reader. Charles drags reader away and shows who reader belongs to ;3 If that is fine with you? *kisses* Lovely blog by the way! *waddles away*

Mine

Notes: Long Request, Smut, Charles + Female Reader, Javier Escuella, Jealously, Slightly Rough, Facial, Aftercare, Fingering, Oral, Handjob, Choking, Hair Pulling, Slight Dom.   

Wordcount: 2,562

Charles gaze wandered across the distracted campground of Clemens Point. Most of the gang’s women worked hard at their embroidery near their tents, and most of the men were in the tedious town of Rhodes nearby; busy collecting information on possible homestead or stagecoach robberies. Uncle lay drunkenly at the campfire with you and Javier – his hollow guitar placed at his lap and his fingers gently strumming a song to you. Your eyes watched his talented fingers work at the strings with a cup of hot coffee between her palms, the sweet Spanish lyrics hummed into the air, meeting the smoke from the fire and creating a devilishly flirtatious atmosphere.

Charles had loved you for weeks now, only being with Dutch’s gang for a short 6 months, his attention was automatically cast to you and you alone. Showing him unlimited kindness in his arrival, making him feel truly welcomed to the strange family you had all kindled – his growing feelings were inevitable. He had thought about letting his emotions known for you many times before, but there was never a right time. Blackwater was a disaster for you, as well as loosing one of your closest friends Jenny in the Coulter mountains – he knew that he had to bide his time, tell you of his love on his own accord, only it seemed that time never came. You had always been a favourite amongst the men of camp, your angelic features and pristine presentation as well as your infectious personality and witty humour had driven them all crazy from day one. An envious pit mixed of jealously and distrust at Javier began to form in his stomach as he rests himself against an oak tree a few metres away from the scene, his sawed-off shotgun perched inside its leather holster at his hip, his arms crossed tightly as he bore witness to the flirtation. 

“Which cord do I pluck again?” You asked gently to Javier, his finger coming to guide yours to the correct note at the guitars neck. Catching Charles’ gaze during the interaction, you could see the hurt in his pupils, and with that he bent at his heel and returned to his guard duty on the skirting woods of the camp. “Excuse me, Javier.” You remarked whilst lifting yourself to your feet, placing the cup on a stool at your side. Making your way past the tented bedrolls and provision wagon whilst calling after Charles worryingly. Your arm was wrist tightly and pulled back – your face meeting a stern Grimshaw. 

“Leave the men alone and do your work, girl.” She muttered harshly to you whilst handing you an empty bucket to fill for camp.

The following day ended with a bustling evening in celebration of a successful coach robbery stacked with antiques and cash carried out by Javier and Charles. The wagon pulled up on the outskirts of the crowding party. Dutch’s music echoed from his tent, wading its way around the camp as orchestrate symphonies lulled through everyone’s drunken minds. 

Javier lifted himself from the seat, bringing his legs down to the step on the side and heading to the back to unload the cash from the chest in the wagon. Charles joined him, cracking it open with a swift jam of his gun at the rusted metal lock.“If you don’t ask her to dance, Charles, I will.” He callously remarked to the towering man beside him before walking off with money stacks for the camp ledger. Charles huffed in response, lifting a freshly lit cigarette to his mouth and searching his eyes around the party for you.

When his wandering eyes met yours, he found you sat with your arms placed gently in your lap on a wooden chair beside Dutch’s tent, he watched you slowly as your eyes drifted to the movements of Molly and Dutch. Their arms were wrapped at each others’ waists and palms, their heavy eyes locked together as they swayed their way to the bounding of violin choirs and piano chords. Your bright eyes that he had grown to love so much were full of a distinct emotion, was it jealousy? 

His thoughts were quickly interrupting my Javier’s extended arm to you in his eye line. A poncho wrapped around his shoulders and a slight grin radiating towards you. You obliged by meeting his palm and lifting yourself to your feet, bringing your other arm to perch lightly upon his shoulder. Your movements soon became rhythmic and you met his body in a gentle slow dance beside Dutch and Molly. Javier’s gaze darted to meet Charles’ - his immature grin still plastered at the corners of his mouth. Was this some type of sick, twisted punishment from Javier? If he knew Charles’ feelings for her, then why did he mirror them? To tease him, challenge him?   

“Bastard.” He mumbled, flicking the cigarette at his feet and outing it with the heel of his heavy leather boots. Before he could even think, his legs were bounding towards you both in slow strides, his face plastered with a stern and tensing expression and his big hands bunched into two tight fists.  

“Javier!” He rumbled towards you both, a fist connecting violently to the left side of his jaw. Javier stumbled backwards into the chair behind him, bringing his palm to the reddening area. Now that Javier was out of the way Charles took this opportunity presented to him and met his palm to yours, dragging you to the wooded trees that cornered the campgrounds. 

Your eyes searched back to the scene; Javier was still clutching his jaw as his eyes followed yours. The only others that had caught the event were Molly and Dutch, but they soon resumed to their dance, almost pretending that they hadn’t bore witness. Everyone else’s attention was either gifted to their whisky flasks or the hollering of Uncle’s drunken tunes at the campfire.

When Charles finally let your hand go, you were pressed against a thick tree trump in a quiet clearing outside, the singing, laughter and music still audible from camp. Charles hair fell around his face as a thick frame and his eyes became dark with both oppressed anger and lust. 

“Charles, are you going to tell me why the hell you just punched Javier!” You loudly cried at the man towering before you, before adding in a calmer manner “He could be hurt.” 

“Oh, please! He’s just trying to steal you away!” His calloused reply brought a lump to your throat. Why was only just making his feelings known? You had waited so long for this! Your mind wandered back to Javier, hoping he would recover fast, but the guiltier part of you was just happy Charles had finally made a move. Whether it was the slight amount of alcohol you had consumed or a brief moment of gusto to your head, you forcefully grabbed the area behind his neck and pulled him down to meet your soft, pillowed lips. His touch at first was hesitant and slow, trying to collect himself, but before long he took over and it was obvious his confidence had finally peaked as he pressed his thick and muscular body against yours, thus pinning you harder against the rough tree bark.

One of Charles large, strong hands came to press against your rounded hips, clutching at the thick fabric of your dress that separated you. His other came to grasp at your neck, slightly pressing down on your airways, leaving you breathless before him and practically gasping for more. Your hands grappled at the buttons on his torso, releasing his perfectly toned chest out of its confinements. He gasped into your touch as the unrelenting breeze washed against his skin, his legs moved to cage around yours and he began rubbing the obvious bulge in his pants against the front of your dress. 

He broke the passionate interaction by pulling away from you and ordering a simple “Turn around and bend” from his throat. You obeyed and pressed the front of your waning body against the tree, your pretty face peeking back at the man behind you as he ripped at the confines of his underwear and trousers, kicking them off to the crushed leaves and returning to you in his naked glory with his thick leather boots still on and his inky long hair blowing behind him in the biting night breeze. Your eyes wandered down to the painfully hard erection that sprang between his legs, much more impressive than you could have ever imagined, and the largest you’d ever seen on any man. Your mouth formed into a perfect ‘o’ at the sight and your legs began to come uneasy at the yearning building between them, thin streams of your arousal pooled at your centre and threatened to slip down to your thick thighs. Seriously? You’d seen a man naked before, why was this any different? Why was he driving you so insane? 

Charles’ thick cock met merely inches away from your rounded ass and his hands reached at your dress him to bunch it up around your waist, next he brought your thin flimsy bloomers to a pile around your ankles – finally exposing himself to the area you needed his attention the most. His eyes bore against your exposes aching core and ass cheeks, the tension only adding to your overbearing yearning for him. Your body bent forward slightly more, silently pleading for him to make the next move. A low chuckle echoed in his chest at the motion and he bent forward to reach your ear, cupping your chin to reach further towards his direction. 

“Gonna prove to you how a real man shows love for his woman.” He moaned against your skin before dropping to his knees behind you. The soft words clouded around in your head, your pussy clenched at the thought. Wait, love? He lov-

“Charles!” You screamed into your fist as his face pressed itself against the sensitive skin of your pussy. Your throbbing clit trapped between his rough lips and the pressure of his expert tongue. His movements quickly spiralling you into an abyss of pleasure. The only thing you could bring yourself to say was this man’s name, over and over as his torture on you continued. 

“Such a sweet little girl” he moaned into your pussy, this time bringing his hands up and rubbing against the pooling arousal, only to push them into you in fast and unrelenting pumps. He stood up; his fingers still wrapped inside your tight tiny hole. His other hand snaked up to your hair, wrapping it around his wrist and fisting it up to meet his face. Your lips crashed together again, and your screams stifled against his coated lips, you could taste yourself on his tongue and the realisation only made you madder for this handsome gunslinger.

“Tell. Me. Who’s. Doing. This. To. You!” Each word was met with an equally aggressive thrust of his fingers into you, your heart bounding at the overstimulating pleasure he was giving you. 

“You, Charles. You. Just… just you! Only you!” At your obedient response his eyes grew darker and his fingers were pulled out, the wetness from them coated against his impressive cock. You could see the rubbing movements of his hand behind you, and the head of him pressed roughly against you finally. Without any warning he pushes himself fully into you with a deep and unforgiving thrust. Despite how unbelievably wet you already were, his size still stretched you to your absolute limits His thick and patterned veins rubbed deliciously against areas inside of you that no man had ever reached, the sensation was incredible and your intense scream of satisfaction was quickly stifled by his strong hand across your mouth. The next deep thrust into your pussy sent your eyes rolling backwards and your legs struggling to stay upright, his other hand assisted this by reaching around your hips and holding you in place while it brushed agonisingly against your exposed clit.

“If anyone hears you, princess, it better be Javier.” He teasingly moans against the sensitive flesh of your neck, as much as you hated to admit it – the thought of Javier hearing Charles taking you this way only brought you closer to your impending climax which was vastly approaching at your core, crashing against your innermost delicate areas and dragging you towards your orgasm.

“Charles. I-I’m…” A harsh particularly harsh press against your clit sent you spirally down a rabbit hole in Charles’ arms, your ears pounded at he fucked you through it, not missing a single beat. The blood rushed to your head and between your legs, causing you to twitch around him and only dragging his orgasm to the brink. In the comedowns of your release, the only words you could muster were pathetic pleas and whimpers for him to cum inside of you, they were met with deep growls from his panting chest. 

“We have a lifetime for me to fill you, darling.” He responded gruffly against your damp skin. When Charles could see you had reached your peak, he pulled out and tugged you down by a rough bunch of your hair to your knees before him. What sent him over the edge was the quiet and hoarse whisper of “Please, cum over me, Charles. I’ll do anything!” As you stared up at the man before you swimming in his own ecstasy. 

Your hands came up to reach around his thick cock and your movements copied his previous unrelenting pumps into you. His eyes met yours in ecstasy looking up at him with an angelic smile spread across your face, hair in a cloud of tangles and breath hitching in your throat, he could barely hold back. The first thick release of cum landed on your lips and in your opened agape mouth, the creamy fluid dancing on your tongue. The next shot across one of your cheeks and proceeded to drip down your jaw to the swell of your cleavage, disappearing down your bodice. The last remaining drops landing on your dress in short wads. After a few short moments he made his way to the small leather satchel resting on the ground along with his other clothes, pulling out a clean handkerchief and kneeling before you. He wiped smoothly away at the dashes of cum painting your face, kissing the skin afterwards. You just sat their in a daze, watching as the man before took care of you after what could most definitely have been the best sex of your life.

The last drop of cum on your face rested at your lips, before Charles could reach it with the small cloth you had already licked it up with your tongue. The movement made his eyes glimmer with admiration and he leaned forward to meet your swollen lips in a passionate and romantic kiss.  

Later that night you had joined Charles at the party and even danced with him next to Molly and Dutch. Javier gave you and Charles knowing glances all night, but he made it obvious that he understood to keep his distance, especially when you sat on Charles’ thick thighs at the campfire and kissed at his neck, mirroring Charles’ affection with soft giggles and “I love you’s.” This was only the start.

I hope you enjoyed reading this guys! I loved writing it. 

[kinfriday]

Wandering Hops: The Wynoochee Washout

The Olympic National Forest is a parkland full of many wonders, including the Hoh Rain forest, one of the largest temperate rain forests in the US. 

Stretching out over the Washington Peninsula, bordering the Puget Sound on one side, and the Pacific Ocean on another, it is emblematic of what people think of when they envision the Pacific Northwest. Long stretches of thick and verdant green canopy dominate the views, broken up by rivers and the towering Olympic Mountains. 

The location itself seems almost unreal, something you might find in a fantasy book, or a sci-fi epic detailing a strange and distant world consisting only of plant life, but it’s easily accessible, and just a few hours from my front door, yet I had never been. 

When planning a hike there’s a lot of cost-benefit analysis and time management that comes into play. This is mainly because hiking is often (but not always) a remote activity, on top of being a time sink. On average, a fourteen mile hike for me takes about five hours if there's not too much elevation, and up to seven if there’s heavy gains and lots of climbing.

However, I could always overnight. 

Returning home from my failed hike on Sunday, I almost went for it immediately. Wynoochee Lake sits at the edge of the Olympic National Forest, but still appeared like a spectacular hike from the reviews I could see. People reported elements of the trail as being overgrown, with multiple tree falls, but I had heard all of that before. 

State and National Parks are often the first places to feel budget cuts and financial restraints which often means reduced maintenance and upkeep. Still, as long as the trails are regularly hiked, they tend to stay passable, so long as you’re comfortable with pushing through some brush. 

At 14.9 miles through peaceful lush woods, a bit of brush dodging seemed a small price to pay, so I quickly found a campsite, and took the time to prepare, making certain to give myself the room I needed to not face it frantically.

Initially, everything seemed to be going my way, after a short email exchange the camp director agreed to hold a site for me, the local Sportsman Warehouse was full up on my favorite flavor of pro bar, and everything seemed well. 

When Thursday morning rolled around, I woke up on time, left on schedule, and headed north towards Olympia looking forward to a good long hike. 

Everything had been planned for, I had extra food and water, and even a camp chair, and a few other comforts of home since I was camping beside my truck. This was going to be a day filled with adventure, followed by a nice dinner and a quiet night in a peaceful campsite.

Resolving to set up camp first, I arrived at Satsop Center to find it a wonderful site, complete with showers, ample tent sites, and a friendly husband and wife pair that ran the place. She told me to pick any open spot, and report back for payment, though the fee was a flat twenty dollars. 

So far so good. 

Forty five minutes later, and I was standing again on their doorstep, eagerly looking forward to my day at Wynoochee Lake. The trail, again clocking in at 14.9 miles, was also listed as a National Scenic Trail, a special moniker assigned by the park service for hikes that are especially beautiful. 

As I turned to leave, she called out, “I hope you have fun, but the lake is mighty low, unusual for this time of year.” 

The Olympic Peninsula, including the Hoh Rainforest a few hours to the north of where I was, is currently undergoing a drought, but looking around, it would be hard to tell. 

Rivers still flow, and the forest is still thick and green. A heavy humidity permeated the air, and the sky on my arrival was grey and overcast, but as I set up camp, and headed for the lake, the weather began to clear, until the sun peeked through the dense canopy overhead, while birds sang and bees buzzed. 

It was getting to be near 1100 hours, and I needed to get on the trail.

Starting out, moving quickly over an asphalt footpath, I headed for the dam, knowing that as soon as I got to the other side of the lake I would be far from the tourists, and the man-made madness that dominated the parking area.  

The trail, suddenly disappeared. Checking my Maps and GPS, it told me I was on the right course, but I couldn’t see anything, save for a small opening in the brush to my left. 

Checking out the small gap in the wall of green,  I found my trail, or what was left of it. What was there, was  heavily washed out. Regardless, I didn’t want to turn back. Even though it would involve a bit of scrambling, it seemed to be passable.

Moving carefully, I descended down to the first segment of what appeared to be a stable platform, only for it to crumble beneath me, causing me to slide a half foot before I was able to dig in my poles and come to a stop with my heart now beating a fearful cadence half out of my chest. I was now overlooking a staggered drop of at least thirty feet. From my new vantage point, it was easy to see that the trail was gone, there was no way forward, and I wasn’t even a half mile in. 

Moving slowly, and thankful my gear had just prevented me from stumbling into a dangerous situation. I pushed back from the edge of disaster, and turned back to look for any other sign of the trail, some missed detour, or a route I had missed. Ultimately I headed up an abandoned forest service road, only for my GPS to tell me I was out of route. 

There was nothing left to do, but turn back. 

Still, the day wasn’t over yet. Wynoochee Lake Trail is a loop, and so, I began to backtrack, following the markers, only to be dumped out on the beach, losing the trail again in a sea of rocks, and clumps of grasses. Here though, there was no danger in pressing forward, and so, using my GPS as a guide, I pressed on until I encountered a boat ramp and another dead end. 

At this point, my excitement was quickly dying only to be replaced by a deep frustration. It just didn't feel like it was my week, dear reader. This was my second hike in a row that was going wrong. 

Three miles in, losing time, and my way, I was now looking out past the boat dock on the lake wondering what to do next.

With nowhere to go but up the ramp, I sullenly turned, wondering if I should head back to the truck, break camp and go home. Then I found the trail head. 

My hope soared. There it was, snaking off into the woods, the Wynoochee River Trail. Somehow, even though I was following the markers, I had ended up diverted onto a side path that ran the lake. Feeling encouraged, I moved forward, determined to get as many miles into the wood as I could, before turning back and heading for the truck. 

In that moment, as the campground area disappeared behind me, the day didn’t feel all that lost. Soon, I was swallowed up by forest, and the traffic dwindled until, suddenly I found myself alone, in the quiet. Towering old growth douglas firs towered majestically up into the sky, framed at their roots by frond heavy ferns. 

This was what I had come to see. The forest thickened as I moved forward, as fallen branches, and whole trees obscured my path forward, causing me to scramble under or climb over them to continue. 

If anything, this trail was proving to be an entirely new type of physical challenge. 

Eventually, after crossing a dry river bed, I came to the grave of two old growth firs. Their massive trunks had fallen across the trail and caused the ground around them to collapse under their weight. With a bit of work, I  could climb over them, but I didn’t know about the stability on the other side, and I had already pushed my luck earlier that day. 

This was where my hike ended. As much as I wanted to press forward, it was time to stop, in the interests of safety and sanity. I had spent the day lost, confused, only to be rewarded by the barest snippets of a hike, my final distance just a little over five miles, including retracing my steps back to the truck. 

In many ways, the Wynoochee Lake Trail was a washout, and, one could argue, a failure, but as I hiked back to my campsite to break it down early and head home, it still felt like a victory, even if it was a strange one. 

I had persevered, I had seen it though, and relied on my experience, and gear to see me safe, taking it as far as I could go, and that experience included knowing when to stop. 

[mgoodarts]

Being One With Nature - New Zealand Camping Tips And Advice

Being One With Nature: Camping Tips And Advice When you go camping in New Zealand, you need the proper equipment to be fully prepared. There are many companies and stores that will try to sell you the most expensive equipment for your camping needs, but you shouldn't listen to them. There is affordable camping equipment out there, and this article will show you what it is and how to find it. If you are camping at a public campground, make sure you pack shower shoes for everyone in your party. Not only will they protect your feet from the bacteria on the shower floor, but they are great for those nighttime runs to the bushes when you need to use the restroom. They can be old flip flops, Crocs, or even slip-ons. Pack a few shovels if there are children with you on your trip. Kids love nothing better than digging in the dirt, and having the right accessories is crucial. If you have room, bring a bucket too. The children will happily entertain themselves in the dirt while you unpack, set up camp and do everything that you need to do. Make sure you have a first aid kit with you. As an alternative, you could pack some supplies in a plastic bag. While hopefully your trip will Maui campervans be free of injuries, you never know. It is best to be prepared so that you can handle anything that happens in the best way possible. Oranges can be used as a food source and a way to repel mosquitoes while you camp. Save the peels when you're done eating and gently rub them on your face, arms, legs or any other exposed areas, and you keep the pesky bugs away with no harsh chemicals and for a great price! Clean up thoroughly when leaving a campsite. Try your best not to leave any trace of you at the campsite you stayed in. This is important, not just in terms of being considerate of other people. There are animals and insects that continue to live in the woods after you have left, so think of them as well. Do not dump any type of food waste on the ground. This is a great way to attract unwanted bugs and animals. The best way to get rid of excess food waste is to dump all of it into the fire pit. It is also not a good idea to bury them. When you're new to camping, make sure you camp close to home. You could have gear issues or you might want to shorten your trip. You may run short of food or need more clothing than you packed. Many problems may occur for novice campers, so be sure to camp near home. Be mindful of the environment when you go camping in New Zealand. Whatever you carry into a campsite, make sure that you remove it when you leave. This will eliminate litter and protect the natural environment. Before leaving, the area you have inhabited should be as clean as you would want it if you were just arriving to camp there that day. If you are on a New Zealand camping trip and forgot the bowls for stew, make your own from large plastic soda bottles that have been emptied. Just rinse the bottle and cut down the plastic to the depth you need. Lightly sand the edges to smooth out any rough spots and prepare to scoop up dinner! Make sure to bring several flashlights or lanterns and extra batteries on your New Zealand camping trip. You may need to be able to see in front of you after sunset at some points during your trip. After all, you don't want to stumble in the dark, or accidentally step on a wild critter. If you have kids with you, be sure they each have their own flashlight. Make sure that your sleeping bag is appropriate for where and when you are camping. Sleeping bags made of lightweight material are optimal for warmer climates. By contrast, you should invest in a heavy sleeping bag if you plan to camp in a cold area. Make sure that your sleeping bag hugs your body. You want to be able to retain body heat. When you are purchasing your camping supplies, spend a little extra on the better supplies. If you buy the better quality products, you will only have to buy these things once. After you have them bought, camping can be a very affordable way to get away from home for a weekend. Wear layered clothing to manage your body temperature. When camping, it is a hassle to have to change clothing when temperatures suddenly rise or drop. However, if you layer your clothing, you will be able to quickly and easily peel off or put on layers of clothing as the need arises. The next time you decide to go on a New Zealand camping trip, don't be fooled by all of the ads and sales jargon by stores and companies. Don't be suckered into breaking the bank in order to buy camping equipment. Use this article to get the reliable and affordable camping equipment you need and have fun.

[rydenstories]

my sister’s disappearance and the church in the woods

REDDIT

Many people in my life don't know it, but I spent two years of my childhood living with my grandmother.

When I was approaching my teen years, it had come to light that my mother had developed a pill addiction after a surgery left her on pain management. She had kept it hidden pretty well for a while, but eventually rehab was the only option. Unfortunately, this left my dad with no one to care for my sister, Diane, and I while he worked countless overtime hours. Nana had to be the one to take us, even though she lived hours away. I didn't mind the move. Any patch of the middle of nowhere is about the same as any other, but Diane felt betrayed. She was a little younger and didn't understand the nature of the situation, she just thought they got tired of us.

Diane often asked me why I wasn't mad that they'd abandoned us. There was nothing I could say convinced her that they hadn't.

During our time living with Nana, she homeschooled us. Our parents didn't necessarily know how long recovery would take and they didn't want us to acclimate to an overwhelming social environment we could immediately be ripped from at any time. They never expected recovery to take so long and they never expected Diane to see it how she did; lockdown. She felt they shipped us away to punish us. Somewhere along the line, she had come up with this evil fairy tale version of our parents when, in reality, they were just kinda having a hard time.

We spent the first fall and winter inside, expecting to go home any day, and when Dad showed up late one night in March, we thought we might really be going home. However, his face was painted with anger and tears. He told us Mommy needed more time, but that trailer was small. I easily overheard the words "relapse" uttered under hushed tones in another room. I don't think Diane understood that much, but when she saw me cry at the realization, she made some sort of connection and it only heightened her disdain for mom and dad.

Spring came around and warm weather opened up the entire world outside. Nana left us to our own devices after lessons and the trailer sat in the middle of a gigantic campground. She told us that there would be many kids to play with when the summer campers came around, so it would be a perfect time to spend spring exploring the grounds. Diane practically bolted out of the door, despite the chill and the rain. We spent a while getting to know the place better together. There were the normal things kids like; two rather large playgrounds and a swimming pool we just couldn't wait for them to open that summer. However, we were more interested in the wooded trails. The entire place was surrounded by dense forest and if you went just a little far off the trail into the trees, you'd find tons of abandoned structures to climb on, waterfalls, and even a few caves.

Diane was very excited about the prospect of meeting and playing with other children. She had a rather large group of friends in our neighborhood back home, and she felt so robbed of that being sent to live with Nana. I was a little shyer, but wanted desperately to convey that I wasn't. I was two years older, but Diane was much cooler and more charismatic than me. I didn't want to seem uncool, so I played it up that I was just as excited as she was. Together, we planned out an amazing hide and seek game in the woods for when the summer kids arrived. We tried to recruit the few other children living on the campground year-round, but there really weren't many. Most of the people living there were old, and if they did have kids around, they were usually only visiting. We gave up and returned to exploring and planning on our own.

There was a day that was particularly rainy at the end of April in which Diane wanted to go explore, but Nana said there would be a big thunderstorm coming that night and she'd prefer we didn't go out further than the two playgrounds. Diane stomped her foot and protested until she finally realized she wasn't getting her way. Then she turned to me, expecting that I would go with her. I told her that I really didn't want to, and she gave me a look accompanied by the hardest of eyerolls before storming off. She slammed the screen door way harder than necessary and was gone. I shrugged it off and fell asleep on the couch, watching gameshows with Nana.

Diane returned later with a different attitude and pulled me aside later on that night, under the cover of the sound of thunder, to express her excitement about having made a new friend at the park named Eden. I laughed, and she became immediately confused and defensive. I genuinely thought she'd made up the name as I'd actually never come across it before then. Being the older sibling, I picked up on her defensiveness and decided to pick on her a little bit, claiming not to believe in her new imaginary friend. I didn't necessarily believe she'd made it up, but messing with her proved to be an opportunity my sisterly instincts didn't wanna miss out on. This made her determined to prove Eden to me.

It took a week but Diane proved me somewhat wrong after spotting a little girl I'd never seen down the path. Her hair was dark with a natural curl and she wore a green gingham print sundress despite the late spring chill. Diane called out to her, using the name Eden, but the little girl didn't turn to respond and instead ran away, down the path and around the corner. I expected to see my sister hurt but instead, she immediately chased after her, laughing as she turned the corner out of site. I tried to chase them down, but they were nowhere around. I turned around and instead found them waiting for me at the head of the trail. I wanted to ask how they'd gotten there, but I didn't get the chance before Diane started boasting about her new friend.

Eden was Diane's age but my size and although she seemed well spoken enough, she didn't get many words out between my sister jabbering on about how Eden knows where to find great hiding places just barely off the path. I scoffed, knowing myself that we'd explored pretty much all of the immediate areas off trail. There weren't any awesome places I didn't know about. Still, this strange girl seemed like she'd been there much longer than us, so I wasn't about to question her. She led us across the campgrounds to another edge of the woods that was mostly bike trails and I immediately felt a smug little smile cross my face, realizing that there weren't any structures on that side. Diane and her little friend were about to make themselves look stupid and I couldn't wait to laugh it up.

Before I could say anything, however, Eden disappeared into the trees with her hand gripped firmly around Diane's wrist, who immediately snatched mine. Suddenly, we were sprinting across bike trails and through trees, not even really bothering with the trails at all. I desperately wanted to ask either of them where we might be going, but I could barely breathe. Both girls had so much momentum that they were practically dragging me behind them. We finally halted at some high bushes, which Eden pushed aside with one fluid motion to expose a large field. At the back edge of the trees was an enormous church.

I stood in shock directly in front of the small opening we'd gone through. Many of the buildings in the woods were intact, some of them weren't even that old, but nothing this huge stood so solidly, the steeple being the only thing missing. Even most of the stained glass windows were intact. It was the kind of discovery you read about in teen fantasy novels, something you expect to be magical. However, I felt wrong for being there.

Although the grass in the field had grown high, there were multiple tiny paths through towards the church that Eden led us down. As we neared the almost too-goliath building, I started noticing things that bothered me; abandoned toys, a few lost bikes, some other toys that looked like something you'd see in a museum. I finally found my voice and spoke up, pointing out the fact that other kids clearly know about this place. My sister shot a look back at me with a condescending "So?" I reminded her that we were looking for hiding places, and Eden wasn't leading us to a good hiding place if every other kid knew about it. Eden spoke up, calmly stating that it wasn't a hiding place. I stopped, feeling a little more than uncomfortable. This stopped the movement of the entire group, bringing both girls to look back at me with an almost impatient demeanor.

They didn't need to ask before I stated that I felt we might get in trouble for being there, someone had to be keeping the place so nice, and it clearly wasn't the other kids, with them just throwing their garbage toys around like that. Eden answered with a little scoff and giggle that said she clearly knew more than me, but I wasn't going to get into trouble for some girl I barely knew, so I grabbed my sister's arm and turned back. She fought against me, but I threatened to tell Nana, and that ended the argument pretty quickly. Eden didn't try to stop us or follow. She instead disappeared up the church steps and through the heavy sun bleached wooden doors.

The following week, neither of us went out. I was to unsettled by the church, and Diane was a mix of angry at me and afraid I'd tattle. Nana seemed a bit concerned and took me aside, wondering if anything was wrong. I didn't tell her anything, though. To tell the truth, I was mildly afraid I might get into trouble too. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Diane listening in. It was clear that she'd heard and realized that I wasn't going to tell Nana anything. She seemed pretty satisfied with that.

I woke up the following morning and noticed that Diane wasn't asleep in the cot next to mine. I wasn't surprised, I knew she'd wanna go out and play now that she knew she wasn't going to get into trouble, so I got out of bed and went to go find her. She could play with her weird little friend without me but I had to at least make sure she wasn't at that church again. I knew in my gut that we weren't supposed to be there, no one was. However, I didn't find her at any of the regular spots. At that point, I found myself getting more and more miffed at her choices and at the fact that I now had to go search the bike trails for her.

I had this smug attitude about me and even had come up with a pretty good idea of exactly how I was going to tell Diane off. I felt pretty self-assured up until an hour into searching all over that side of the forest and finding absolutely no sign of my sister, Eden, or the church. I doubled back to the trail-head and sat for a moment before ultimately deciding to go back to the trailer and tell Nana. We'd be in trouble, sure, but I reasoned with myself that Diane would be in more trouble than me, and at least Nana would probably know where the church was located, or one of the grounds managers definitely would.

I'd made it about halfway back to the trailer when an unsettlingly warm hand grabbed my wrist from behind and spun me faster than I could react. Eden, this time wearing a yellow rose print button up sundress. She had a genuine look of worry on her face. She told me that she and Diane had been playing hide and seek, and she couldn't find Diane for some time. My own worry kicked up, but I was also a little intrigued; this was the first time I'd heard Eden speak at any length. She had an accent I'd never heard as a child and still can't exactly place as an adult, and she told me that Diane might be hiding somewhere really dangerous.

I listened to her talk more as we walked across the campground together, her taking the lead. Eden spoke the whole time, telling me about all the different structures in the forest, and what they used to be. She told me about these dangerous little rock ledges she'd told Diane about, and how we'd go there to make sure she hadn't hurt herself. Her voice was smooth and even kinda comforting, it put my worries at ease. I started to feel guilty. Maybe my previous discomfort with this girl stemmed from jealousy. I could still feel something off about her, but it was now muffled under the comfortable surface that her voice provided.

When we reached the edge of the trees, she grabbed my wrist again and asked me to trust her. Before I could say anything, we were gliding through the forest again. This time, she pulled me behind her with her own force alone, fast enough that the trees around us all started to smear together in shades of green and brown. We burst through some brush and again, there stood the intimidating church and the toy-littered grounds around it. Eden had let go of my wrist and I was kinda feeling that uneasiness again. I knew this wasn't where she said we were going, but without really thinking about it, I allowed her to grab my hand and lead me ahead.

The doors seemed even larger up close and looked heavy, but Eden grabbed the handle and pulled it open with ease. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust from the brightness outside but I was shocked to find that the inside of the church was almost completely pristine. The red walkway carpet that led to the pulpit looked brand new and the beige floor underneath could've been freshly mopped. Twelve rows of wooden pews lined each side of the center walkway. They were all littered with children's toys, little trinkets, jewelry, jackets, and even a few loose shoes. The rest of the room had stood through the test of time, but those things didn't for some reason.

The fixture that immediately drew my attention was a dark, bathtub sized basin on the far side of the pulpit. Eden led me to it. As we grew closer, I noticed that there was murky water inside. It smelled rank, like swamp. She told me there was a really cool animal living in it. She wanted me to see it. I wasn't able to think much more about it before I felt my legs moving me toward the tub, my head leaning closer to the water in hopes of seeing such a strange creature. Something underneath the surface started to swirl. Light glowed from somewhere far deeper than the basin itself was capable of being. I saw something floating deep and I leaned closer to look.

Diane's face floated in the deep distance, just close enough to see, but somehow much too far away to reach. Her eyes were vacant, her face bloated. The word drowned popped into my head a few moments before my mind registered what that meant. I started to feel my body freaking out and I felt myself start to back away when a hand from behind me, now hot and much too large to be a little girl's, landed on my neck and shoved my face hard into the water. I screamed before I thought to take a breath or close my eyes, so I went in blowing air out. My eyes burned horribly for a second as I closed my mouth and I tried to conserve what little air I had left, while also trying to fight to get my head out of the water. As I struggled, I got a blurry look around. The water around was much too vast to fit the tub's capacity, it was kinda like putting my head down into a hole in a frozen lake. Multiple lights started appearing in the far, murky distance.

They began to approach, dread knotted up with my empty lungs, and I fought harder.

I got my head up long enough to pull air and turn to glimpse Eden. She was much taller now, the floral dress she wore was torn and stretched over her bony, hunched over body. Her skin was all dried up and warped like sun-bleached wood. Then, my head was back in the water. The lights were much closer. I started to wiggle and contort my body in any way I could to get up.

At some point I brought my left arm up a little too far back and I felt something tear in my shoulder. Before I could register what I'd done, that arm struck something hard and Eden lost her grip. I ripped my head out of the water and turned my entire body to her, hoping not to let her get the upper hand on me again. Before I could even focus on Eden, I noticed the room had dramatically changed. The pristineness of it all had disappeared and replaced the whole room with the smell of wet, disgusting swamp stink. A few pews were now missing, the others rotten, termite-eaten, and moldy. The center carpeting was ripped up in a bunch of places and stained. The floor underneath was warped and muddy, with small puddles of dark water pooling all around. The decay of the room finally matched the decay of the objects it housed.

My eyes returned to Eden, still showing her true nature. Her large hand clutched her chest, where I must have hit her to knock her grip loose. I was lucky.

The natural curl of her hair had degraded into long, lifeless tendrils that hid her face as she was preoccupied, looking down at her chest, less in pain and more likely in shock that I was able to knock her back at all. I took the opportunity to move as quietly (but quickly) as I possibly could around the basin, away from the pulpit, and towards the door. I stopped dead in my tracks for a moment when I noticed a single item that hadn't been there before, sitting in the middle of the carpeted walkway; a tiny, silver bangle. It was a gift from my mom to Diane when she turned 8. I know during that time at Nana's, she hated our mom to some extent, but not enough to ever take that bangle off. My knees threatened to cave when three small voices began speaking in perfect unison from behind me. I didn't turn around, I didn't want to see any more of whatever Eden really was, but I never forgot what those voices said.  

"It doesn't matter if you get away. You lost. She's mine. They all are."

I bolted without another thought. I didn't bother to look anywhere except ahead as I ran out of the doors, away from the church, and into the woods. I ran until I realized that I was no longer in the forest at all, and I'd actually exited from a completely different area than I been led into. I returned to Nana's trailer as fast as I could and blabbered out everything without putting much thought to whether or not she would believe me. Whether or not she did didn't make itself immediately apparent. Instead, she covered her very clear concern for my sister in as much comfort for me as she could while she grabbed the phone and called the police.

They arrived and I told them everything as well, but my spirits were dampened by the sheer disbelief and almost disgust some of the officers wore on their faces long before I finished my story. Despite that, I probably recounted it exactly the same, eight or nine times by the time my dad showed up. He shoo'ed everyone away from me and wrapped me in a big hug. It was the first time I felt safe all day. However, it was also the point where the adrenaline finally wore off and extreme pain exploded from my arm and back. The crying began. My dad took me to the hospital, where I learned that I'd completely tore a muscle in my shoulder.

Searches began. The campground owner said that there used to be a church on the land, long before they'd bought it, but they were assured that it had burnt down. In fact, it was one of the only previous structures on the land that didn't have any recorded ruins. They didn't have anything to go of off, so they just searched everywhere. Over and over.

They never found the church. They never found my sister, either.

The authorities wanted to piece parts of my story together that made sense so they could write their reports and let it go. Diane had been lured into the woods by a kidnapper using another child as bait. They tried to do the same to me, but I was able to get away. That was the reality they chose to believe and to present to the rest of the world. It didn't need to be more detailed than that for them.

I spent another entire year living in that trailer, on those same grounds. I lived in fear because I knew what reality actually was. I knew it every time I remembered the taste of that foul water in my mouth, or the heat of Eden's hand on the back of my neck as she held me under. Diane's bloated face stared at me whenever I closed my eyes. It wasn't until my mom finally recovered and I was able to move back home did I start to heal and feel safe again.

The fear faded, but the memory never did. Still, I chose to keep it to myself. It was easier to live with it than experience the disbelief of others over and over again.

In the middle of the night last Saturday, I was jerked out of my bed by my throat. The fingers wrapped around my neck were so hot, I thought they might be metal. It only kept a grasp on me long enough to get me up. I collapsed to the floor in total darkness and loudly gasped for air. The struggle woke my fiance and he quickly flicked on his bedside lamp to reveal an empty bedroom. He got up and helped me up, asking me about a dozen questions, none of which my brain registered. Instead, I ran off to the bathroom, where I cried until I knew I had to tell him everything.

I'm very lucky that he believes me, or at least it seems like he does. I hope he does. Our house has absolutely reeked of swamp stank since it happened, so I know he is at least aware of that. Thankfully, I have yet to be yanked out of bed again, but I'm afraid.

I don't know what to do from here, but I'm tired of being the only person that knows, even if there are no answers out there for me. Even if this just serves as a helpful warning for others to be careful.

[eene-fangirl]

Stand By Ed Chapter 7 [An Ed, Edd n Eddy Crossover]

Note: Here is the next chapter of @impano and I’s crossover of Stand By Ed! Enjoy!

Now it was completely dark all across the Lemon Brooke woods. Having traveled at night before the boys made camp in a safe place. It was an open grassy area surrounded by trees. If only they could sleep in the location they had last time. The city lights made them feel safe. At least the moon was out. Eddy especially felt much safer. It was still embarrassing to admit that dumb fear.

It took some time, followed with great patience, to start a campfire. After vigorously rubbing together two sticks as smoke fired out his ears, Eddy made the fire.

The humorous event reminded Eddy of a funny story he wrote.

As the Eds munched on marshmallows Eddy entertained his friends about a boy with the biggest ears. They’re length was similar to Dumbo. The boy had hearing better than any bird. One day he was in school and heard a girl whisper to a friend that she was going to ask some guy by the name of Brad out when she already had a boyfriend. But the friend already asked Brad to go out. But, Brad was asking some other girl out as they spoke! The boy with the big ears followed the commotion only to learn that the fight was occuring in another state!

Ed and Edd laughed as Eddy took a little bow. “Thank you, thank you, and thank you!”

“That was very good, Eddy,” Edd complimented.

“What happens after?” Ed asked.

Eddy’s smile faded. “What do yah mean?”

“Does the boy fly to the other state to see the drama? Ooh, that would be funny!”

Eddy uncomfortably scratched the back of his head. “Uh... I don’t know. That’s all I came up with.”

“What’s the reason why the boy has big ears?” Edd was next to ask.

Eddy shot Edd an annoyed look. Edd immediately felt guilty. He should have known better. Eddy just wrote to relieve his anxiety. Eddy enjoyed writing more then he let on Stacks and stacks of papers scattered around his room. He made up little stories about random characters, his own feelings, or even about his disco ball. Eddy had a unique mind. It was a shame he wouldn’t make it more of a hobby.

“It’s just a dumb story, guys!” Eddy huffed scarfing a half burned marshmallow down his throat.

Ed and Edd guiltily frowned. Putting another marshmallow on a stick Ed hit his against Eddy’s forming a gooey string of the dessert. Eddy laughed and playfully punched Ed’s arm.

“If only we had some buttered toast!”

“How would a marshmallow and toast go together?” Edd asked.

“Anything tastes good with buttered toast, Double D,” Ed stated matter of factly.

“Best not argue, Double D. The first thing I ever saw lumpy eat when I first met him was shrimp, two donuts, an apple, dsome steak tips, and even a turkey under two slabs of buttered toast.”

The conversation moved on to a ‘would you rather’ match, to movies, and betting which characters could beat out the other in a wrestling match. This is what the boys missing out on. Their time with no worries was quickly fading. That’s why Eddy was so anxious. There friendship would fade for sometime until they became closer. What if they actually split up in high school?

Eddy’s concern was soon forgotten when the howl of a wolf prowling some near distance alerted the boys.

“What was that?” Ed shivered grasping Edd’s arm.

“The call of a wolf, no doubt,” Edd gulped.

“A wolf?” Eddy questioned, his voice noticeably higher.

“It’s the wilderness, Eddy!”

“We never heard no wolves on the way to Bro’s!”

Before Edd could argue further another wolf howled which sounded even closer from the first one. The three boys huddled together in a tight hug. The fire didn’t light up much of the campground. Were the wolves lurking right outside the dark shadows ready to feast on their skin?

“This is not good! We won’t be able to sleep like this!” Edd deemed holding Eddy tightly. Eddy didn’t mind so much. He wondered if Edd noticed him holding him holding his hip.

“Not unless we take watch,” Ed recommended.

Both Edd and Eddy looked startled by their friends advice.

“Would you take watch, Ed?” Edd asked feeling quite humbled. Ed always looked out for them.

“Sure! Then Eddy can take watch and then you. We could keep watch by that tree.”

“You sure you’re gonna stay up, Ed?” A skeptical Eddy asked.

“Of course! I’ll just count chickens!”

Eddy grabbed something from inside his bag. “Wait Ed, take this!”

It was the gun. Terror flooded Ed’s face. He refused to take it. Edd was also giving Eddy a reproachful eye. Having learned that there were bullets inside the weapon earlier that day they had no idea how many more there were.

“Only use it if you really need to,” Eddy carefully instructed.

The crickets were chirping. Any little sound set Ed off. He tried to relax but if a stick snapped Ed picked up the gun and pointed it in every direction. Edd could hardly sleep fearing Ed may harm one of them by mistake.

As night went on Edd’s eyes grew heavy. He snuggled into his sleeping bag and drifted off to sleep.

Eddy took the next watch. He wasn’t at all tired. His mind kept him awake with irritating thoughts gradually bringing his mood down. His hand tightened around the gun in anger having to listen to his brothers voice on constant repeats like a broken record.

Noticing their fire slowly dimming Eddy left his post. He tapped at the burning sticks. What good would it do? He couldn’t even start a fire.

A moan alerted Eddy.

It was from Edd. He head tossed and turned in his sleep. He made another moan of discomfort.

Surrounding Edd were bodies. The kids were all injured. A little girl stared up at him with frightened teary eyes. That’s when Edd snapped out of it realizing what he was doing. The kids... they all looked... dead. Then there were flashing cameras in crowds of people with blurred faces asking why he injured a number of a children with dodgeballs. Someone ripped his hat off revealing the scar. People laughed. They pointed. And laughed. Edd searched for his parents. He called for them but no answer.

Then, there was his father.

The crowd of people diminished and it was eerily silent. Just Edd’s father staring coldly at his own son with no hat to cover the scar.

“Father...”

“I hate you, Eddward.”

Edd gasped away.

“You okay?” Eddy asked concerned.

Edd panted, grasping his beating heart. Tears threatened him. His whole being ached wanting a hug to relieve it all. No. Monsters don’t deserve hugs.

“Nothing.”

Eddy stared at him in pity much to Edd’s dismay. His focus returned back to the fire which steadily grew making them warmer. Without a word Eddy walked back to his lookout position miserably holding the gun. The way Eddy faced away from the campfire alerted Edd.

Years ago when they were outside of Mondo-a-Go-Go Amusement Park Edd remembered Eddy staring into the night sky for what seemed like an hour. And then the whole night turned into a deep conversation between the three friends which changed their friendship for the better.

Edd stood up and tip toed over to Eddy so he wouldn’t disturb a snoring Ed.

“Mind if I join you?” Edd whispered.

Eddy jumped, startled. “Y-Yeah, sure, sockhead.”

With some company Eddy looked a little better. Even Edd. The dream didn’t settle his worries.

“A penny for your thoughts, Eddy?” Edd asked with a nervous smile.

Eddy leaned his head against the tree. His whole body looked strained, holding back any pain. Then he shut his eyes, biting at his lip.

“I wish I could just drop out of school.” Came Eddy’s answer.

Edd’s heart ached. “Eddy, why?”

“I ain’t smart enough,” Eddy mumbled hardly looking at Edd.

Edd sighed an irritated groan. “Eddy, stop thinking that about yourself! You’ve come up with the most brilliant ideas. You always have a plan B.”

“You’re just sayin’ that.”

“I mean it! You always catch me when I overthink my studies.”

“So what?” Eddy huffed, waving his arms out. “If I’m smart then why don’t any of those wise ass teachers ever think so?”

Eddy growled staring at the ground hatefully. He still had the gun in his hand. Frim a short distance away Ed still snored.

“We’re going to the high school, Eddy.”

“Thanks for the reminded again!” Eddy snapped.

Eddy’s behavior confused Edd more and more. His friend was known for his angry spouts. “I meant that we have a fresh start.”

“Fresh start my ass! They all know me! As soon as I strut into that school they’re all gonna run for cover knowing I’m Terry McGee’s little brother.”

And with that Edd completely understood. “Eddy, they’re not...”

“Uh... earth to sockhead! Weren’t you payin’ attention at all these past three years?!” Eddy’s voice howled through the woods. Little did Eddy know he actually scared off a wolf. “None of them trusted me! I never got a say! No one ever took my side! They knew I was an evil destructive, cheating lowlife!”

“That’s not true.” Edd said calmly.

“Oh it is, don’t you try to defend me! No one ever asked if I made all those copies of an embarrassing school photo! Nope, they thought I wanted a gazillion copies to have as my headshot for when I was famous someday! And then I cleaned ‘em all up for two stickin’ hours without a ‘thank you.’ And then they go and give me a week’s detention for your impersonation of the principal.”

Edd’s heart swelled. “Eddy, I said...”

“I know! You told me and said you were sorry. It’s all in the past, Double D,” Eddy said to him. A tear escaped his eye. Eddy quickly brushed it away.

“Who were they gonna believe?” Eddy continued in a low voice. “All the kids who were torturing the victim or the kid brother of ‘Terrible Terrel’ McGee?”

Eddy sniffled. He bit at his knuckle forcing his sobs down. The skin broke, bleeding. Edd placed a hand on Eddy’s shoulder trying to calm him.

“Nope. They’d believe you. And a jock who gets bad grades. Three witches who hardly show up for school. And a spoiled brat! But not me! A kid who was abused by his own brother for no reason whatsoever! Did they even care?! No, they didn’t ask. They just assumed! No one trusts me! They all...” Eddy hid the tears and shook his head.

“I just wish I could go some place where nobody knows me!”

Edd pulled his best friend into a hug letting him cry into his shoulder. Eddy held Edd closely, shaking as he sobbed.

“I’m such a sap,” Eddy was trying to laugh it off but he couldn’t.

Or the remainder of he night the two boys held one another tightly. Once assured that nothing was coming after then they went back to the campground and slept. Eddy's hand stayed connected with Edd’s as they fell asleep to crickets chirping.

[wichitahouseholdservices]

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[hikingmysteries]

Up in Smoke

This account comes from the Strange Outdoors website, originally published October 27, 2017 and updated May, 2020. Edited for length.

On Friday, September 25, 1981, 58-year-old, Thelma Pauline Melton, often called “Polly”, was hiking with two of her friends, Red and Trula, on the Deep Creek trail near the North Carolina side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. They started their hike around 3 pm.

It was an easy, well maintained trail on gravel that Polly had been hiking for 20 years and she knew the area well. The Deep Creek Trail, began close to the group’s campgrounds and continues into the National Park. About a quarter of a mile inside the park, the trail splits. The right side leads to a picnic area and campground and the left side of the trail continues into the forest.

That day the picnic area and campsite inside the park was busy, with around fifty cars in the parking lot. There were many people hiking, fishing, camping and riding horseback that day. Polly, Red and Trula walked more than a mile past the picnic area and the fork in the trail. They stopped at a turn around and Polly smoked a cigarette. The conversation amongst the friends was positive and lighthearted.

As they headed back to the trailhead at around 4 pm, one hour into their walk, Polly suddenly picked up her pace and began putting distance between the two other women. Red and Trula were not sure what had gotten into Polly, with Red calling out, “I wouldn’t want to be in a foot race with you, Polly.” Polly looked back and laughed, but she kept up the pace until she was out of sight. Red and Trula kept expecting to round a bend or top a hill and find Polly waiting for them. They knew she would need rest and couldn’t keep up that fast pace.

But the friends weren’t able to catch up and did not find Polly waiting on them. Although it was strange, they weren’t worried as Polly knew the trail well. They arrived back at the campsite at around 4.30 pm and went straight to Polly’s trailer. But Polly had not returned. Confused, they began asking everyone else at the campsite. No one had seen Polly.

Red and Trula never saw Polly again. She had vanished without a trace.

Polly and her husband, Bob (78 years of age), spent the fall living in an Airstream trailer at the base of the Great Smoky Mountains, in the Deep Creek Campground. She’d been calling that area her second home for more than 20 years. Polly, Bob and their friends stayed there several months of each year, before returning to their Jacksonville home. The campsite was private with about 10 other couples. The others on the site were close-knit and no newcomers could join the campsite without unanimous approval from the rest of the group.

Polly was on her third marriage to Bob with no children. They had married 6 years before in 1975, and Bob’s health was declining. Bob had two adult sons from a previous marriage.

As she grew older, Polly struggled with her weight and her health. At the time of her disappearance she was 5'11" and weighed about 180 lbs. She had high blood pressure and suffered from nausea. She took medication for both conditions. She smoked two packs of Virginia Slims cigarettes a day. She did not drive in the summer of 1981, as she’d temporarily lost her license due to her medical issues.

Polly had also suffered from several episodes of depression. For example, when her mother died in 1978, Polly fell into a deep depression. She told her pastor that she wanted to go to heaven to be with her mom. During this conversation with her pastor, she made comments that led him to believe she may have had an extra marital affair that she felt very guilty about. In 1979 she was again depressed and revealed to her pastor she was a heavy user of Valium. However, things seemed to improve, and by 1981, the pastor said she was in a much better place mentally. Polly’s father visited her and Bob in early September of 1981. He and Polly had grown very close in the priory years and he stated she seemed normal during his visit.

On the day she disappeared she was wearing a white and pink sleeveless striped blouse, tan polyester pants, size 8 ½ shoes with crepe soles and glasses. She also had a diamond studded white gold wristwatch and a wedding band.

Bob was not physically able to search for his wife, but began calling everyone he could think of to see if they’d given Polly a ride. Trula, Red, and two other friends headed back to the park and checked the picnic area and parking lot. They hiked the trail again and began asking other hikers if they’d seen a woman matching Polly’s description.

At 6 pm, Trula, Red and Bob reported Polly missing to a park ranger and a large search was launched involving around 25 people. They began searching the trail and picnic area, including the creek that ran parallel to the trail.

Polly was terrified of snakes and her friends said she would not go off trail. Furthermore, there was thick vegetation on both sides and it would be easy to spot any disturbance. There were several forks along the path, but they were all marked.

Many of the park rangers knew her and described her as intelligent and strong. They stated she was very familiar with the area and they didn’t believe she could have gotten lost.

Over 150 people searched for Polly over the next week. Nine search dogs were brought out and the trail was closed. One of those dogs alerted on a downed tree near the creek. The handler believes Polly must have rested on the tree, but none of the other dogs detected her scent. Rangers posted pictures and spoke with many campers, hikers and fishermen to no avail.

Since Polly suffered from high blood pressure and nausea it seemed unlikely she could have got a long way in a short time. Her medical problems had caused her to lose her driving licence and she did not have any car keys with her.  

Authorities were unable to even get a good set of tracks to follow, which would have made things easier considering Melton’s left shoe had apparently had a noticeable crack in the sole which would have made her tracks easy to differentiate from those of other hikers.

Bob Melton was so distressed that he was admitted to the hospital the night Polly went missing. The following year his sons helped him sell the Airstream and he moved into a nursing home. Bob’s sons refused to speak to the media. One son did comment that his only interest was the impact on his father. According to the Meltons’ pastor, Bob later realized his bottle of Valium was missing from the Airstream. Polly’s nausea and blood pressure medications were untouched.

One theory is that Polly ran off with a secret lover. She volunteered at a Presbyterian Nutritional Center during the times she lived in North Carolina. For the previous four years, she had been serving food to the elderly at the Center. At the end of a shift, the volunteers would write down the next day that they would be in. Polly always worked on Fridays, but on Thursday, September 24 she did not write down that she’d be returning the following day, as was her habit.

The center’s supervisor later revealed something else that was outside of the norm that day. Polly had never before asked to use the facility’s phone. But on her last day she asked to use the phone several times. The supervisor did not hear the conversations and no long distance charges were on the phone bill. Authorities were unable to trace the phone calls.

Perhaps Polly arranged for someone to pick her up whilst on her hike, to make it look like she was lost in the woods, thinking that this way would be easier on her husband, rather than him knowing she left him for somebody else. This is postulated as a reason why she picked up her pace and moved ahead of her companions on the trail.

Months after Polly disappeared, in April 1982, a check was cashed in her name in Birmingham, Alabama. The check was for interest due on a bank certificate. Investigators followed up on the lead, but it led nowhere as they could not prove if it was her handwriting. The teller later had no recollection of who cashed the check.

No trace of Polly Melton has ever been found and she remains missing.

[travelingtheusa]

KENTUCKY

2020 Oct 8 (Thu) – We spent the day in the campground.  We drove over to the laundry room and did the wash.  Paul tried playing with his drone but it was acting up.  He’ll have to look at that.  I spent the afternoon looking at attractions in Pigeon Forge for our next stop. We move to Tennessee tomorrow where we will meet up with other SMART members for a non-muster.

2020 Oct 7 (Wed) – We sat around the campground this morning and gave the animals a chance to play outside.  At 10:30 a.m., we left for Cumberland Falls State Resort Park in Daniel Boone National Forest.  Within the park is Cumberland Falls.  Rarely, an event that takes place there only occurs in the Western Hemisphere once in a while. It’s called a moonbow.  We see rainbows all the time.  All you need is sunlight and water droplets in the air.  This happens very frequently after rainstorms. Rainbows occur at the base of waterfalls a lot.  A moonbow is when the conditions are right at nighttime.  Rather than sunshine, it is moonshine reflecting on the water.  It’s supposed to be very beautiful to see and open happens when the conditions are just right with a full moon and no clouds.

     After we hiked along the falls and river, we drove to the lodge for lunch.  The food was very good.

 2020 Oct 6 (Tue) – We packed up and left Dry Ridge at 9:35 a.m. The weather was good and the drive was easy.  We arrived in three and a half hours at Laurel Lake Camping Resort in Corbin. After the crowded environment with the constant noise, this campground is heavenly.  It is maybe one-quarter full with lots of space with all the empty sites.  It is a very long, spread out campground with trees and a lake.  

     We drove into town to the Harland Sanders Café and Museum.  It is supposed to be the first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant Colonel Sanders opened (before he became known as Colonel Sanders) with a small museum attached to it.  The café and museum were closed for renovations; the drive-through was open for take-out.  We didn’t want that so we drove back into town to look for a restaurant.  The Depot on Main was a bar and café.  Paul had a pasta dish and I had their special - Hawaiian Chicken.   Our waitress had such a heavy accent, we could only understand about every third word.  She was new and slow.  I left the restaurant annoyed.

     After we finished our meal, we walked down to Sanders Park.  There was a small area with a life size statue of Harland Sanders with plaques and bricks honoring donors.  Storyboards told the story of Sanders rise to prominence. He had quite a storied life with lots of failures before his chicken franchise made him a millionaire.  

 2020 Oct 5 (Mon) – We went out to lunch to Beans Café.  The food was excellent.  Paul had a hot ham and cheese with potato soup.  I had a hot turkey melt with bean and ham soup. After lunch, we went to the post office so I could mail off the letter I wrote for the American Legion fund raiser. I called a bus tour company today to complete reservations for our caravan next year.  The agent I had spoken with before is working from home so the office had to take the message, then call her, and then she called me.  She took all the information and promised to send me an email with the final price quote.  

 2020 Oct 4 (Sun) – We went food shopping this afternoon.  It was hard to find a restaurant for lunch. We finally went to the Waffle House and had breakfast for lunch.  The food was good.  Afterward, we went food shopping at Kroeger.  The store was big.  Next door, Kroeger had a liquor store and we stopped there next to get wine and booze. After putting the groceries in our portable cooler, we drove to a winery and did a tasting.  It was on the high side - $8 for a flight of 3 wines, $8 each for a glass of wine, and $28 for a bottle of wine to take home.

     I called the commander of Rusy Bohm Post back home.  They are running a fund-raiser that I just happened to come across on Facebook.  I offered to write a letter for him to send out to the membership.  He agreed and I spent the afternoon composing a letter. I will send it out to him tomorrow.

 2020 Oct 3 (Sat) – I finally got through to the Niagara Falls campground only to find they have raised their rates.  We budgeted $113 a night and they said it would be $117.50 – and that’s with a military discount!  That’s just too much.  So I called a state campground about 15 miles away.  They have available sites but we have to make the reservations through Reserve America.  The clerk at that site had to make the reservations in groups of 6.  They also require the name and phone number of each individual.  We have 20 people signed up so far with 2 more spaces available.  So I gave the names and numbers of those folks who have signed up for the caravan to date, then gave 2 fake names.  We’ll see that goes.  As a result, we will save almost $7,000.  With that kind of savings, we can hire a bus to take the group to Niagara Falls.

     We drove to Williamstown to The Ark Encounter this afternoon.  We got $10 off the admission price as senior citizens. In addition, the price included a free dinner, which cost $15 each.  It was a pretty good deal.  The ark was huge!  It is the largest wooden timber structure in the world.  It was built to show what the ark was like. There were 3 stories with lots of plaques to read.  There were cages with mock animals in them.  Most of the animals were extinct as they imagined those were the types of animals they would have had back then.  The place was packed!  We couldn’t believe all the people who were there.  Almost everyone wore a mask in the ark but less than half wore one outside.

 2020 Oct 2 (Fri) – We packed up and left Olive Hill at 9:40 a.m. We were third in line for the dump station (a short stop before hitting the road).  The drive was pleasant.  The weather was good.  We arrived at the Northern Kentucky RV Park in Dry Ridge at 1 p.m.  This used to be a KOA campground.  It is old and heavily treed.  The sites are too close together and very uneven.  The campground is between a train track and the interstate. There is constant noise.  I don’t think we would come back to this place. The wifi is good.  We have full hook ups.  The pool has been closed for a couple of years.  There is a lake with some paddle boats on the shore but they don’t look like they’ve been used for a while.

 2020 Oct 1 (Thu) – A transformer blew in the campground this morning so Paul took me out for breakfast.  That turned out to be quite an adventure.  All the restaurants in Olive Hill (of which there are few) were closed.  A donut shop was open but we didn’t like the choices so we drove 20 miles over to the next town to have a meal at Biscuit World.  The biscuits were large and flaky – delicious!  The rest of the meal was not so good but it did what it was supposed to.

     We returned to campground and did the laundry.  During a walk this afternoon, Paul stumbled on a site with wood targets where people can throw their knives.  He came back to get me and I gathered up my throwing knife set then we went to the site and threw knives at the targets for 15 or 20 minutes.  It was fun and very challenging.  Afterward, we walked over to the horse stables and fed 3 horses and 2 donkeys some apples.

     The campground has been steadily filling up with RVs and tenters coming in.  It looks like they will be full this weekend.  The maintenance in this campground is minimal.  They put papers at each campsite with the name and dates when the site is reserved.  Many sites have dates that have passed but the papers are still at the sites.  Some sites have garbage piled in the fire pit. I don’t know if the staff is just lazy or if they are operating with minimal staff.  

 2020 Sep 30 (Wed) – We took a tour of the Cascade Cave this morning. It is a living cave with lots of water activity.  That made it kind of exciting.  We had to go out of the cave and back in another entrance twice to see everything. There were parts of the wall that had been bricked up by the cave’s owners to prevent unauthorized entry.  We enjoyed both cave tours (yesterday and today) very much.

 2020 Sep 29 (Tue) – We took a tour of X Cave today.  It was a very interesting cave in that it had two rivers running alongside each other, separated by a cave wall.  Over time, the wall collapsed and became one cave making an X-intersection with 4 passageways.  The cave is still an active one.

     I have heard the term “Caveland” used around here.  I don’t know if it refers to this area or to the entire state itself.  There are over 200 caves in Kentucky; 25 in Carter Caves State Park alone.  Only 4 caves are open to exploration over the year – 2 are closed right now because of the hibernating bats.

     We had lunch at the lodge.  The park is old and all the buildings and facilities show that.  The lodge is typical – made of dark wood and beams. The waitress was very slow although we told her we were in a hurry.  We ordered vegetable soup and grilled cheese.  We got something more like chili with lots of meat in it and the cheese sandwich was barely toasted.  I didn’t even eat my sandwich.

     We drove into town to mail off some things at the post office.  We drove around the area, exploring some of the back roads.  The buildings were mostly old and run down.  It looked like this might have been a well-to-do area years ago but has fallen on hard times.  Probably when the caves stopped being primary tourist attractions.

 2020 Sep 28 (Mon) – We packed up and left Meadow Bridge, WV at 9:55 a.m.  It was very foggy and overcast and we had rain on and off during the 5 hour drive to Carter Cave State Park campground in Olive Hill, KY.  We stopped about 15 miles from the WV-KY border at a Walmart to pick up a few groceries and have lunch.  The new campground is not near stores so it is better to get what we need before setting up.  Getting into the campground was a little hairy.  The road was narrow and had several hairpin turns as we drove through heavy trees.  When we arrived at the office, the clerk said we were already checked in and gave us our site number.

     The weather was crappy so we stayed in the campground.  There are several caves in the area that we will be exploring in the next few days.

[xtruss]

The Great Lakes are higher than they’ve ever been, and we’re not sure what will happen next

Lakeside living comes with a new premium: flooding and lots of uncertainty. Researchers and residents aren't certain what comes next. — via Popular Science

— By Molly Glick | May 15, 2020 | Popular Science

A storm on Lake Michigan isn't the same as a storm on the ocean: There are different atmospheric factors and water-flow patterns that determine its ferocity. Jentara/Deposit Photos

A single road near Lake Superior connects Michigan’s Keweenaw Bay Indian Community to the rest of the state. During major rains, rocks and wood litter the route and cut off travel in and out. Over the summer, drivers have to take a 30-minute detour; in the winter, the trip can take more than two hours. Work crews eventually clear the path with plow-like machines, freeing the tribe’s movement.

Living at Superior’s southern edge, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community (KBIC) manages close to 19 miles of its shoreline. They rely on it for tourism revenue, drinking water, and fish for the tribal hatchery. A full lake is good news for KBIC, but if the levels spill over, it could spell danger for the residents’ subsistence.

This precarious balance shifted toward disaster during the 2018 Father’s Day flood, when more than seven inches of rain pounded the area in just three hours. In the storm’s aftermath, fecal runoff plagued local beaches, teeing up an explosion of harmful E. coli bacteria. The Michigan Health Department closed several swimming spots on the state’s Upper Peninsula, but they didn’t offer to test the tribe’s domain. That led KBIC’s Water Resources Specialist Stephanie Cree to take matters into her own hands. After all, the health of Lake Superior is an essential measure when people’s livelihoods depend on it.

“A lot of the community relies on fish for food,” Cree says. "We have a lot of tribal and commercial fishermen who rely on fishing for income.”

Cree instituted weekly beach monitoring to check bacteria levels, soon shuttering two of the reservation’s beaches. As far as she knows, it was the first such closure in Keweenaw Bay’s modern history. And it likely won’t be the last, given that the region is becoming more unstable by the day.

Across the 5,241 miles of Great Lakes shoreline, tribes, cities, vacationers, and wildlife managers are grappling with devastating flooding and erosion. It’s a different story from the nation’s coasts, where rising seas are creeping inland at a steady pace. Instead, the five Great Lakes fluctuate naturally by season—though over the past four decades, they’ve bounced both above and below historic records. Experts suspect that climate change is partially driving these shifts, but because of the complex nature of the water, it’s hard to isolate human factors from the rest of the turbulence. That leaves states like Michigan with little room to prepare for the lakes’ next turn.

To understand how much the Great Lakes have seesawed, one needs to go back to 1860, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers started taking monthly averages of the water levels. Based on those measurements, the lakes have stayed within a modest six-foot range of their typical levels. But the pattern of spikes demands closer attention.

Since September 2014, the planet’s largest collection of freshwater has broken and re-broken most of its long-term records. Last June and July, Lakes Superior, Erie, Ontario, and “the sixth Great Lake,” St. Clair, all surged above century-old highs. Meanwhile, Lakes Michigan and Huron hit new peaks this April, after an unusually wet winter pushed their levels three feet above the monthly average.

Some of these patterns are inherent to the cycles that shape the Great Lakes, says Chin Wu, an engineer at the University of Wisconsin, who’s worked with the Army Corp of Engineers and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to study the system. The basin’s levels usually increase in spring with heavy precipitation and runoff from snowmelt. They continue to ramp up through mid-summer, as hotter temperatures cause water molecules to expand somewhat, before dropping off in fall as cold air accelerates evaporation.

“The Great Lakes are very complex,” Wu says. “It’s not like the simple formula for ocean levels, which keep going up.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been taking monthly averages of the lakes levels for the past many decades to identify anomalies. (Michigan and Huron are connected and considered as one unit.) Graph: Sara Chodosh

The recent string of record highs relates directly to extreme ice cover from 2013, 2014, and 2015, says Greg Mann, science and operations officer at the NOAA National Weather Service Forecast Office. Competing atmospheric processes, like evaporation and precipitation, usually keep the Great Lakes system in equilibrium, he notes—but when one of those reactions doesn’t go as planned, the water builds up too quickly. That’s exactly what happened during the 2014 polar vortex, when the region froze over and evaporation took a hit. Months later, the ice thawed into the lakes, just as the heavy spring rains arrived.

The opposite is also true, Mann says: Reduced precipitation and low ice cover can speed up evaporation, causing levels to bottom out. In fact, before the recent stretch of highs, the Great Lakes experienced its longest sustained period of below-average waters. In spring of 2013, Lakes Huron and Michigan reached the nadir of a 15-year plunge, posing a challenge for industries like shipping and hydropower.

Less understood are the freak meteorological events that feed off already-dangerously high waters. Meteotsunamis will randomly materialize in the Great Lakes, lasting anywhere between a few minutes and two hours. The storm-driven waves usually top out at a foot, but they can still cause major damage; in 1954, an abnormally tall meteotsunami pounded Chicago’s shoreline and killed seven people.

Looking back on all the dramatic highs and lows of the past decade, it seems impossible to project the future of the tides. The best bet is to dig into data and predict a wide range of outcomes for each lake. Currently, researchers from NOAA and the Canadian Hydrographic Service are tracking the tiniest changes in water levels with gauge stations positioned throughout the five Great Lakes (there are 53 total in the US). The sensor-packed devices allow scientists to keep close tabs on the amount of water flowing in and out of the basin. That itself is a tall order: Lakes Michigan and Huron alone take in an average of 139 Olympic swimming pools’ worth of runoff and precipitation per minute.

From that data, experts can try to learn if climate change is gaming the Great Lakes system, though they still won’t be able to draw any solid correlations. Studies have already linked climate change to shifting local precipitation levels. The region’s annual rain and snow totals have shot up by 13.6 percent since 1951, and as of last October, the Great Lakes experienced its fifth wettest year in a row. The coming decades could bring even damper winters and springs.

What’s more, the region is losing swathes of frozen ground, much like the Arctic. Recent NOAA maps show that the basin’s total ice cover shrunk by 69 percent between 1973 and 2017—a trend that might link back to warmer water temperatures in summer. Less ice means more waves hitting against land, resulting in erosion on Chicago beaches and coastal hamlets. In January, a cottage in White River Township, Michigan, toppled over a bluff and collapsed in the waves, a tragedy that could signal the new normal for lakefront life.

All in all, the country’s longest freshwater coastline isn’t what it used to be. Some parts of Michigan’s shorefront are eroding at an average of a foot a year, and the state has spent millions of dollars restoring damage on campgrounds, dunes, and beaches.

There’s also a symbolic importance embedded in Michigan’s coasts. Locals take ownership of and advocate for the Great Lakes’ protection, says Nick Assendelft, public information officer at the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy. “It’s in the DNA of Michiganders to have a connection with water.”

Michigan officials are monitoring development in high-risk erosion areas, though only 10 percent of the state’s coastline currently falls under this protection, says Richard Norton, a professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Michigan. Meanwhile, some residents are trying to salvage their lakefront homes by installing rock or steel sea walls to guard against rising swells. These can cost property owners up to $150,000 depending on the material and property size, says Beth Foley, a Michigan real estate agent who specializes in waterfront homes. In particularly treacherous zones, people have even picked up their homes and dragged them several yards away from the lake.

Besides being impractically pricey, sea walls and other armoring measures can counteract themselves by redirecting waves in a way that accelerates erosion. Wu, the University of Wisconsin engineer, also says they eat into prime coastal habitat by churning up waters that displace sand from the shallows. With that in mind, researchers are seeking “soft” solutions that don’t simply cut communities off from the Great Lakes, including “living shorelines” made of natural materials such as flora, rocks, and oysters. The idea is far from new: Indigenous communities around the globe have traditionally used vegetation to fight erosion, and cities in Washington, North Carolina, New York, and Alabama are already putting the non-rigid buffers to use.

The 2018 Father's Day flood was linked to heavy amounts of rain, which caused spillover from Lake Superior and local tributaries in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.James R. Melchiori/USGS

For the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, hard and soft solutions work in tandem. The tribe hired a company to install boulders and a loose foundation of stones called rip rap around their gas station on Lake Superior. And for more than a decade, the natural resource department has led restoration efforts like seeding native grasses as a screen around local soils and wetlands. These measures also increase habitats for birds and butterflies, a win-win for the Superior ecosystem.

Ultimately, the stakes are high for KBIC. The tribe’s most valuable assets are based in and around the lake, both in the fisheries and the sands that hold centuries-old burial grounds and historically important plants. When the floodwaters spill onto the roads, they don’t just jeopardize the community’s economic well being—they threaten its cultural salience, too.

Moving forward, there’s no telling what the lake waters will do. They could wax and wane as they have over the past century, with slight deviations from global warming and regional cold snaps. says Eric Anderson, a physical oceanographer at NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. But unlike the accelerating trajectory of sea-level rise, the Great Lakes levels probably won’t follow a clear path.

In the short term, the Army Corp of Engineers is forecasting a wide range of outcomes for each lake. Overall, they’re expecting a similar situation across the lakes for the next six months, says John Allis, chief of the Detroit District Great Lakes Hydraulics and Hydrology Office. “We’ll either be dealing with record highs or just below them.”

Ice cover on Lake Superior registered at a little below 7 percent this February, as compared to 37 percent last year. NOAA CoastWatch Great Lakes

How to deal with those highs is a complex issue of its own. Take KBIC for example: The Father’s Day Flood propelled its natural resources department to organize a plan for future emergencies (a mandatory component to vie for federal disaster funding). Cree, their water expert, thinks nearby tribes may follow suit.

“This is all something new,” she says. “We haven’t had these types of issues before because storms are happening more frequently.”

In 2018, the tribe began developing a pre-hazard mitigation plan to tackle abiding concerns like record water levels, extreme storm events, infrastructure issues, and climate change, says KBIC Environmental Specialist Dione Price. They hope to adopt it by this summer.

And while the Army Corp of Engineers’ models may give communities a hint of what to expect, the future of the region can’t be determined by a curve on a graph. To really understand what’s happening with local water levels, Mann, the NOAA operations officer, says, people need to gain an appreciation for the intricacies of the Great Lakes. Warming and cooling don’t pull all the strings in the system; neither do natural cycles likes rain and evaporation. “Predicting outcomes with any certainty is nearly impossible,” Mann says. “I know that isn’t satisfying, but that is how things work.”

[spookyreddit-blog]

Long one here! But please stick with me. Last year a friend and I went on a long road trip to New Mexico. We camped most of the way, and our first night we got to camp we spent in the Jefferson national forest at a campsite in West Virginia. We had found some pamphlets for camp sites at a gas station and we drove out to a place called white rocks campground, which was like a 25+ mile drive up a dirt road into the mountains. We were in the boonies.

On our way in we saw no cars except for one truck that was behind us for maybe 15 minutes, but then turned down another road. We passed a huge coal factory with a sign that had said "62 days since an on site incident." The only people we saw on our drive were standing on the side of the dirt road, huddled around a plastic bin that was on fire. It was all so odd, but we were so excited about camping and being on this trip, we were just laughing about how weird it was instead of not being worried about having A) no cellphone reception or B) being so deep into the mountains.

We finally get to the campground and it is completely empty. Not a single car or person to be seen, and this campground had about 30 sites. We drove around all them trying to spot anyone, but when we realized it was just us we picked a random site and decided to just stick it out. We got out of the car and stood there and just listened. The silence was startling. I love being in the woods, I've never felt scared or intimidated to be out there, but there was such a different feeling this time. There were no bird sounds, it was just thick, silent woods. This was straight up Blair Witch.

It was getting dark quick and we decided to start a fire and put up the tent to try to get comfortable. My friend was in charge of the tent and I was putting together the fire. While we were trying to go about our business, we would both stop and listen. My friend even made the point that if anyone was to approach us, at least there were crunchy leaves everywhere for us to hear it coming. See where this might be going?

I thought we were just freaking ourselves out, but it really felt like someone was watching us. It was the first time in my life I've understood what that feeling is. I had goosebumps, I wanted to leave, but I kept my cool for my friend (turned out she was also internally freaking out, but trying to keep it cool as well). Finally the fire is started, tent is up and sleeping bags ready and the sun had completely set. Sitting around the fire together, the darkness seemed to close in so close to us that it felt suffocating. My friend brought out a book to read aloud and make us feel more comfortable. While she was reading, I grabbed my headlamp and would occasionally turn it on and look around me. I had had the feeling since we pulled into the campsite, that someone was out there in those woods. It was pitch black, and our fire was a beacon.

My friend and I decided FUCK IT LETS GO TO BED. We'll just go to sleep quick, then pack up in the morning and GTFO was our thought process. We put out the fire, and I decided to grab the one knife we had on us that was still in the car, and keep it beside me in the tent. After getting into our sleeping bags, my friend pulls out her cell phone to see if she had any cell reception. Nothing still. She tried to dial her boyfriend just in case, and I remember saying out loud "we have no reception out here, it won't work."

We laid there in silence watching her phone trying to dial out, but it disconnected. And if that was not the perfect fucking cue, suddenly about maybe 20 feet off to the left of our tent, there were footsteps. These weren't footsteps that quietly built up, these were footsteps like someone had been standing behind the tree near our tent and started walking towards us. Those crunchy leaves were doing their job. We. Fucking. Froze. Just stared at each other, eyes wide. The footsteps continued to walk towards the tent, then turn to go behind for maybe a couple yards and then they stopped. Silence again. These were heavy booted footsteps, with the same pattern that would be a person walking, not a bear or a deer. My friend grabbed my knife that was laying by my bag and grabbed her headlamp. She unzips the tent and gets out and stands in front of the tent, knife out, looking around the area. She's a goddamn warrior. It was maybe 45 seconds of silence as we listened for more footsteps or voices. I could see the light from my friends headlamp dashing around the trees, but there was nothing there. She stuck her head back in the tent and said "we're getting the fuck out of here" and then we in record time packed up everything of ours in probably 10 minutes and flew out of there. I'm amazed thinking back on it, how we didn't loose our heads, we kept our cool while packing (but still internally screaming in terror). We only had our head lamps on, and the whole time we were packing up I kept thinking how the hill people would grab us and pull us into the darkness, and we were completely helpless if they did. It didn't feel like it was really happening, maybe that's why we were almost completely calm while packing. Like there's no way this is actually happening on our first night camping, we must just be freaking ourselves out... I still felt like we were being watched, but we sped out of there once done.

Now here is where the hill people hunting us was confirmed. As we pulled out of the campsite, there were two black dirty trucks pulled off to the side of the road, hidden in the trees almost but still clearly visible. They had definitely not been there when we pulled in earlier, and the closest residential homes were maybe 15 miles away. We didn't see anyone around them but we didn't stop to look. We got to a motel and stayed a night there and told the story to the motel owner, who was amazingly sweet and comforting and even gave us some cash even when we left that next morning for us to use for another motel if we needed. I promised that man I would give him a good review..

I will remember every detail of that night for the rest of my life. The feeling like we were being watched, hearing the footsteps so close to us suddenly, the black trucks...If anyone out there is a good writer I would love to have someone put this in writing for me (because I'm a terrible writer, and this post itself is probably godawful).

TL;DR: went camping in the deep west virginia mountains, felt like being we were being watched and heard footsteps outside our tent and saw trucks by our campsite after we packed our shit up to GTFO. Don't go to White Rocks Campground.

[umichenginabroad]

The End is Near

June 6th, 2019

Well I am once again checking in a bit late due to some time away from WiFi. When I posted last I was just finishing up my second to last week of class and I am now officially done with classes here at UC. It is quite bittersweet to be honest because I am definitely going to miss being here in Christchurch but I am quite excited to see everyone back home in the States. This last week of classes was actually quite laid back because the engineering courses here tend to be very test and report heavy during the term with things winding down towards the end of the semester. 

With things winding down, I decided to go on a small trip to the West Coast with some friends on the weekend after the end of classes. It was was a bit of a last minute plan with very little, well...planning. We ended up going from Christchurch to Mount Cook/Aoraki National Park where we did a little hike in the 1.5 feet of snow that the area had received. Though it was quite chilly, we got some beautiful views. We ended up camping in tents just about a 45 minute drive from the park near Lake Poaka. I was lucky because I had the warmest sleeping bag out of the four of us so I managed to get some alright sleep during the night where it got down to around 20 degrees Fahrenheit. We woke up shivering to some beautiful views of the surrounding mountains.

Some of the crisp morning views we had at our campground

After the freezing night, we moved our way around the mountains and went further towards the West Coast and the big glaciers. We ended up staying near Fox Glacier right near the beach to the Tasman Sea. Throughout the night we were visited over and over by a very curious possum that had no problem being close to humans. 

The next day we did a hike up to the viewpoint for the Franz Josef Glacier which was absolutely stunning. I have been so fortunate to see so many different glaciers since I’ve been here in NZ but Franz Josef was by far one of the most visually stunning. It was the typical glacial blue and was perched up among some beautiful mountain peaks. 

The Franz Josef Glacier as seen from the lower viewpoint

From the glacier we moved north towards Hokitika and Punakaiki where we got to see the more tropical West Coast. The stop in Hokitika was more or less a resupply stop but we also took a short walk on the beach. To be quite honest it wasn’t that remarkable except for a cool drift wood sign of the town name.

My attempt at making the sunset fit in nicely with the driftwood

We camped up near the Pancake Rocks of Punakaiki and visited them the next day. First we went and walked down to the beach as the tide was coming in and we preferred to not be swept out to sea on our walk. Though I had seen the Pancake Rocks before, it was still a lot of fun this time as it was much higher tide and the waves crashing around the rocks created some great sounds.

After wrapping up in Punakaiki, we made our way back through Arthur’s Pass where we did a short walk to Devil’s Punchbowl Falls. Not surprisingly it was quite cold up in Arthur’s Pass so we didn’t spend a ton of time hanging around. From there we moved on to Castle Hill, one of my favorite places. It is really just like a huge rock jungle gym and this time it was all covered with a few inches of snow!

The view of Submarine Rock on the edge of Castle Hill

We made our way back to Christchurch where I am now and am getting to enjoy a lazy day back in my flat before I actually have to start studying for my final exams (and start packing up)!

Tidbit: The Franz Josef Glacier is a very interesting glacier not in its size or melting (though it has quite a problem with that) but for its geographical location. Its terminal face rests at an altitude of just under 1000 ft and comes within 12 miles of the Tasman Sea. This makes it one of the more accessible glaciers in the world and it even has its own tourist town just a few miles from the face. This makes it quite a tourist attraction and the volume of tourists has been increasing quite substantially over the past years. The glacier was actually increasing in size for a period of time but that came to an end in 2008 when it entered a very rapid phase of melting which has been attributed to recent climate change.

Cheers!

Wes Fermanich

Materials Science and Engineering, University of Michigan

University of Canterbury 2019, Christchurch, New Zealand